Manhattan
by alwayswritewithcoffee
Summary: A new city, a new job, and four years of distance can't change the fact that Manhattan is home - where her heart is. (AU from 3X01. Beckett accepts her D.C. job offer while Castle spends the summer in the Hamptons with Gina.)
1. Chapter 1 (Manhattan)

_Author's Note: My job requires me to spend a lot of time in my car. Over Christmas, my lovely family and friends gave me the gift of Sirius XM, which means I can listen to whatever music I want. Sara Bareilles has been one of my favorite artists for years and, after stumbling across a station that plays her music, I spent an entire four-hour road trip listening to her stuff. This idea sparked off her song 'Manhattan', but the plan is to weave many of her songs into the story and use them as a soundtrack of sorts._

_So what is the story? Simple. What if Beckett's DC job offer came between season 2 and 3? What if she ran before they ever got started and, most importantly, what happens when she comes back?_

**Disclaimer**: I still owe thousands in student loan payments, if I owned Castle that wouldn't be the case.

* * *

_You can have Manhattan, _

_I know its for the best,_

_I'll gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep,_

_And I'll tip-toe away, so you won't have to say, _

_You heard me leave._

* * *

The threat of tears holds off long enough for the elevator doors to slide closed, for Kate to give half a wave that Castle never sees while he has eyes for his ex-wife.

It's all so embarrassing, she thinks as she spins on her heel and tears down the main hallway. She's a detective, has always prided herself on keeping a professional front inside these walls, but on the day she takes a chance and truly, _finally_, decides to lay it all out it ends with a petite blond hanging on his shoulder and a half-hearted farewell.

Happening in front of her team adds a layer of shame that adds a hot slice of anger to the emotions churning in her gut, bringing the irrational urge to throw her beer bottle against the brick wall as she passes the women's bathroom.

It's the obvious place to go. Kate knows that she has, at most, a minute before Lanie is hot on her heels, so she takes a sharp left and heads into the corridor that leads to the back stairwell. It's not one that the precinct uses all that much, filled mostly with extra chairs and miscellaneous items they only need on occasion.

But she knows this place, has investigated every nook and cranny and it affords her the ability to get the drop on her best friend as she shoulders between two towering boxes of files and nudges open a door that sticks with age and disuse.

Once it had been an office - a desk and two chairs and crammed into the room - though now it mostly serves as storage. Montgomery had briefly worked out of the small space a few years back when his office ceiling was leaking and needed repair, but Kate can't recall another instance that anyone has set foot inside.

She locks the door as an added precaution, her hands sliding off the doorknob with a slight shake that, again, sends her blood boiling in anger even as her eyes begin to prick and her throat closes up. For a moment, she hates herself as the tears finally flow over the rim of her eyes and streak down her cheeks. She hates that she is 29 and crying over a damn boy while hiding in her own workplace. But she is, and its the ugly sort of crying, too. The kind that requires a night full of boy-bashing and pints of Ben and Jerry's with your best friend. It's the kind of night that Kate Beckett will never allow herself to have with Lanie because it will eliminate plausible deniability.

If she gives up the ghost, the game is up and it becomes impossible to deny just how thoroughly Richard Castle has worked his way into her life. Of how completely she cares about him.

And if she gives up that secret, voices the words, she knows that she'll crack. That the looks and tough love provided by Lanie will break her into confessing to him.

So she resolves to stay quiet, to pour her broken heart out on the floor of an abandoned office in the 12th Precinct and then to pick herself off the hardwood and get back to work.

Because she lost him, long before she ever had him.

* * *

_You can have Manhattan,_

_I know its what you want,_

_The bustle, and the buildings, the weather in the fall,_

_And I'll bow out of place, _

_To save you some space, for somebody new,_

_You can have Manhattan,_

_Cause I can't have you._

* * *

"Yes, sir, I understand exactly what you mean," Kate says, waiting until the deep voice on the line cuts her off for another long explanation before she pops three M&Ms into her mouth. They are some of the last in the bowl, which is the last personal item aside from her parade of elephants that remains on her desk, and she makes a mental note to purchase some bubble wrap at the corner bodega before the end of the day.

Because the elephants and the bowl are going with her - after 5 p.m. she no longer works for the NYPD.

"I'm flattered, sir. And it really has been a pleasure to serve the city. I'm certainly going to miss it," she replies with complete honesty, ignoring the slight fracture of her heart at the idea of leaving this place behind. It comes up whenever someone mentions her imminent departure, and she's ignoring it with all of her might.

Analyzing what it means might give her cold feet. And she doesn't want cold feet - she wants monuments and politics and a spot on a federal task force that will leave her absolutely no time for a personal life and a broken heart.

Yes, she's running, but that doesn't mean she has to _care_.

The mayor bids her farewell with a few more words of praise, and Kate drops the phone back onto the cradle with a long sigh. It wasn't as if she had a personal relationship with the man, so when Ryan had told her there was a call waiting from him she had been confused. One brief meeting at a charity auction and a couple of poker games warranted a personal phone call to thank her for her service to the city? She supposes she should be flattered, and on some level she is, but it all just screamed of favoritism, of Nikki Heat and Richard Castle, and all the things that still made her throat seize up and her heart ache.

Six weeks without a call or a text. Six weeks of silence. Six weeks where she spent a ridiculous amount of time with her fingers lingering over the screen of her phone and debating on making the first move.

In the end, she never had. Instead she'd worked a case involving a drone strike and secret agents - she'd worked with his voice whispering insane theories in her ear and the phantom taste of the coffee he brought her in her mouth. And, in the end, when she'd nearly caved from missing him, Agent Stack had presented her with an offer.

Kate had jumped at it, had been flattered by the praise of her talents and the lure of making a difference on a national level. She'd reveled in the idea of leaving behind her hometown and making a name for herself.

She'd been relieved at the opportunity to leave his ghost behind. To know that she'd be able to quietly excuse herself from his life and never have to face his eventual return and, by extension, the heart he had unknowingly broken.

Two days until her flight departs from JFK.

She ignores the apprehension that curls along her spine as the Captain gestures for her to join him in his office.

* * *

_You can have Manhattan, _

_The one we used to share, _

_The one where we were laughing and drunk on just being there,_

_Hang on to the reverie, could you do that for me?_

_Cause I'm just too sad to.  
You can have Manhattan, _

_Cause I can't have you._

* * *

Crisp fall air, a cloudless blue sky, temperatures that are just cool enough to need a light jacket.

It's his favorite time of the year in Manhattan, the point where the city comes alive with an energy that is somehow both bright and lazy. There's none of the sluggish thump of summer, the cold bite of winter, instead the city simply seems to breathe. To acknowledge the color and the last remaining days of comfort.

Rick falls back into his routine as if he hadn't taken almost a four month vacation from the Precinct. He sends Alexis off to her first day of school with a big hug and a brief kiss to the crown of her head, showers, eats breakfast and heads directly to the coffee shop two blocks from the police station.

In the end, he decides to surprise all of them. They had never agreed on a specific date for his return, and he spends the time waiting for his orders imagining the pleased responses. Of course, he'll have to smooth things over with Beckett, he knows she'll be annoyed with no contact from him but they've done it before.

He's not worried when he takes the carrier and the box of pastries. He even finds himself humming as he steps into the building and tosses a hello towards the desk sergeant. The head of close cropped brown hair and the black suit jacket sitting at her desk alert him that something is wrong - for the first time that morning Rick's step falters as he searches for the straight chestnut hair and slim figure of Beckett, listens for her heels tapping across the wood floor.

He sees and hears nothing, and his heart inexplicably sinks a bit before Espo's form comes into view.

"Castle, what are you doing here?" There's no joy in the detective's expression, no hint of friendliness or teamwork and Rick immediately takes a step back.

"I...uh...coffee…." he eventually stammers, holding up the carrier as Kevin Ryan rounds the corner and plucks it from his hand. The three of them are strolling towards the break room before he's even processed that they are both furiously angry with him and, still, there is no hint of Beckett about the bullpen.

The anger doesn't seem to translate to coffee as both men take their cups and dig into the box of pastries. Rick has to bite his tongue when Epso lifts out the chocolate bearclaw he'd purchased for Beckett. He mourns a little for her breakfast once the man has taken a giant bite.

Others wander in and out while the two of them eat, saying hello, patting him on the back, making coffee from the machine he purchased for them a year ago. And it's all fine, it's all pleasant and perfectly well minus the gaping absence of Katherine Beckett.

It's when Ryan reaches for Beckett's travel mug that he finally snaps, finally levels his eyes at the man and demands to know where she is.

To his credit, Ryan doesn't flinch though he notices Esposito hold his arms across his chest and sit upright in an unconscious move to protect both Beckett and his partner.

"Beckett doesn't work here anymore, Castle. She moved to Washington D.C. a month ago," Ryan responds, a hint of sadness and satisfaction to his voice.

It's nothing that Rick is able to process, he's beyond thinking about the over-protective brother act being given to him, because his world has suddenly screeched to a stop.

Kate Beckett is no longer a cop.

She no longer lives in New York City.

And she left without saying goodbye.

* * *

_Lyrics: 'Manhattan' by Sara Bareilles from 'The Blessed Unrest'._


	2. Chapter 2 (Hercules)

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Promise that I'll reply to all of you in turn in a few days - just been preoccupied with family stuff. Also, as a matter of clarification, assume that the Nikki Heat book titles remained the same though, obviously, the plots would be slightly different. We are also, time wise, now modern day 2014. Time vortex!_

_(As an aside, there is a f-bomb in this chapter. Castle is mad. Not upping the rating for a solitary use.)_

* * *

_I miss the days my mind would just rest quiet_

_My imagination hadn't turned on me yet, _

_I used to let my words wax poetic, _

_But it melted in a puddle at my feet._

* * *

The steady clicking of fingers over a keyboard halts suddenly, seconds ticking by where sound seems to evaporate in the air and merge with the dust that floats in the afternoon sun streaming in from the windows. It lasts only a moment moment, the breaths worth of suspension broken by the scrape of fingers through hair, of the leather chair creaking on its hinges, the puff of disgruntled air that gives voice to the writer at work.

Rick will admit to himself that it isn't work he is proud of. Like much everything else he has written in the past month, these words will only ever see life by absorbing room on his hard drive.

Nikki and Rook. Rook and Nikki. Two people who cost him every ounce of concentration and creative juice that he can muster. A couple who sparked on the page long after the real-life inspiration tiptoed out of his life until, suddenly, he ran out of gas.

It had taken five books before it happened, which he considers to be a personal triumph after the complete 'fuck you' that Kate Beckett had left him with that fall. In his darker moments, the ones where his anger overwhelmed him and the complete besotted school-boy-in-love act had truly annoyed him, he'd written page after page of violent deaths for Nikki, had Rook dress her down with the tongue lashing and hell raising that he had so desperately wanted to deliver to her erstwhile inspiration. Once he had even boarded a plane, an irrational decision aided by the three tumblers of scotch he'd consumed, only to jump off just before the aircraft taxied towards the runway.

Instead, he threw his phone into the Hudson.

Rick considered it a matter of supreme unfortunance that her number was burned into his brain and, after four years, he could still dial it from memory and, in theory, listen to her voice via whatever message she had left.

He had pleaded with Black Pawn after the third book, offered a return on his advance plus interest and almost everything short of the moon and the money dedicated to Alexis' college education to allow him to break his contract.

Predictably, Gina had enjoyed laying down the hammer and not granting such a thing. She'd given him that simpering smile, the one that seven years of marriage had allowed him to learn in the most intimate of ways. It was the smile that meant she had him pinned to a corner and, as punishment for crimes of the past and future, would thoroughly enjoy keeping him tied up until she received what she (or her employer) wanted.

They wanted all six of the books he had promised. They were going to get them unless he _really _wanted them to take all of his money.

And he hadn't, so he'd grudgingly outlined the next two books. Gone back to shadow Espo and Ryan with a bitter taste in his mouth, followed the two of them and their rookie trainee Sully for six months before Rick had called it quits. Six months had been all he could stand once he realized that Beckett still lurked in every corner.

That was when he had started to hate her, he thinks. The moment that he would stop in the middle of a crowded sidewalk when he thought he saw a heeled boot attached to long, lithe legs and choppy chestnut hair, when he still turned to say something inappropriate just to see her fight a smile and roll her eyes. Then he would remember she wasn't there, that she had left, and his distaste grew for both himself at chasing a phantom and whatever cowardice had sent her running in the first place.

Rick knew she had run, that something related to him had spooked her. It was the only logical explanation for how thorough she had been. There had been no call, or text, not even a brief note to explain her departure. She hadn't even told the boys the real reason - just some line about taking the opportunity given to her and needing a change.

It had eaten at him for months, kept him awake for hours as he tried to analyze the enigma of Kate Beckett. Basic snooping at the precinct had told him Demming was still working in robbery, that he was now seeing a detective in Vice and seemed happy (but still smarmy and self absorbed). Eventually, when his snooping and analyzing failed him, he had called and left a few messages, sent a handful of texts and emails, even a first-print copy of 'Naked Heat' with a letter.

The complete silence issuing from all things Beckett led him to stop and, over time, frozen whatever affection he had carried to a slow, simmering burn of anger.

Kate Beckett was no friend of his. She also wasn't some great love of his life, or even more than an infatuation. She couldn't be. He wouldn't allow her to be because what man willingly cared for someone who walked out like that? Kate didn't care about him. He had been fooling himself. He just wished he had seen it sooner.

* * *

The files drop onto the desk with a thump, the top two of the stack skidding off to collide with the bowl of candy. One of her prized elephants also takes a careening leap from the edge of her desk toward the floor, leaving Kate jerking forward to scoop the ceramic animal from midair and its certain, hundred piece death.

She spares no expense on the side-eye directed towards the careless filing clerk who spends most of her time flirting with the other officers on the task force and only grudgingly performs the duties of her job. She's pleased to note the slight jerk of the clerk's chin and the downward swivel of her eyes as the blonde backs out of her office and closes the door. It almost looked like an apology.

With her elephant and its little family rearranged in their row, Kate's hand darts out to scoop up a handful of M&M's, popping them one by one into her mouth as she begins the task of reading through the information of her latest assignment. Like most of those that the task force works, it has become a matter of national security, sensitive enough that it requires the light hand of their team instead of the heavy weight enforced by the visible members of the FBI.

Bribery schemes, political intrigue, business fronts and money laundering - all the markings of one of Castle's theories.

The thought has formed in her head before she can catch it, and Kate steels herself for the dull ache that always follows the memory of Castle. Four years has done a lot to douse the flames in regards to their final meeting, though she has resigned herself to the idea that the sting will always remain.

She's tried dating since then, everything from casual hookups to a serious relationship. Even one misadvised eight month stint with Will that had crashed and burned when he had taken a post in Europe and accused her of being in love with a ghost.

The ghost analogy wasn't far off, there were moments when it did feel as if Castle haunted her days and nights with a whisper in her ear or a smile peering from a book jacket or magazine page. She still bought his books, still read them cover to cover, ignored questions about Nikki Heat on the rare occasion that they came up.

Instead, Kate did her job with the same tenacity that had made her the youngest female detective in the NYPD's history. She worked almost constantly, maintained one of the highest closure rates on the task force and, after her promotion, ran her team with efficiency.

The work itself was a challenge, requiring all the elements of her police training and investigating that she enjoyed. The pay increase was nice, the travel and the toys but she had never banked on the lack of interaction with the victims of the cases she worked. Providing that comfort and justice had grounded her at the 12th, kept her afloat on the worst days, and in her four years Kate had never adjusted to the lack of that.

In this job, the family knowing your name and your face as the closing investigator usually meant you had done something wrong.

There was no denying it was a lonely existence.

* * *

"The bullet grazed his right kidney and, going from the angle of the entry wound, I'm going to say that the shooter went at him from above. I'm not ready to tell you from how far or how high, that's something we will do at the lab, but a shot in the back…."

"It's impersonal. Calculated and premeditated," Kevin Ryan supplies, ignoring the glare directed at him by his partner and responding with a grin.

Lanie and Javi are back on again if the not-so-sly looks and sentences left for the other to finish are any indication. He's spent the entire visit to the crime scene trying not to laugh at how obvious they both are. It's about as subtle as Beckett and Cas -

"Bro, what are you doing here!" Espo's voice cuts across everything else, including his train of thought as the writer lumbers into his sight line to give both of them quick slaps across the back in a greeting before crouching down to hug Lanie and investigate the body laying face down in an East Village alley.

"Needed some inspiration," Castle supplies after a beat, glancing up at the two detectives, "Captain Montgomery was happy to oblige - needed a live case to get the creative goods flowing. Book is due soon."

He makes no mention that it will be the last book.

"'Alright, well," Ryan begins, "Our victim is Jonathan Vickers, wallet was found tossed in the dumpster at the end of the alley, says he lives Upper West Side, key card for a hotel room also inside and an ID that says he is a translator for the UN. Money missing from the wallet, and credit cards, but judging from the way he was killed…"

"Seems a lot of trouble to go to all of that for money…." Castle picks up Ryan's thought a beat later, rising to his feet as Lanie's assistant approaches with the gurney and body bag.

"People have killed for less, but I agree with you. Gonna send Sully and some uniforms to canvass these blocks, see if anyone remembers the guy out here last night,' Epso says, gesturing with a nod for Castle and Ryan to follow him towards the knot of squad cars guarding the entrance.

* * *

It's controlled chaos as Kate steps out of her office, her eyes immediately finding her supervisors across the room in time for Rachel McCord to gesture that she is expected in the conference room in five minutes. Ringing phones, rapid fire speech and fingers flying over keyboards all hit her ears while she weaves through the room, a large DMV photo of Jonathan Vickers appearing on the giant video board that dominates the northern wall of the bullpen.

She remembers Vickers name being tied to the phone records of a Congressman, of the suspected bribery scheme which the task force had been instructed to uncover.

"Vickers has connections all over the world from his job with the United Nations," McCord is saying when Kate enters the room, large folders of information being passed from person to person as she takes her seat at the table, "From what our research shows us, he primarily worked with European contacts due to his fluency in French, and Italian. However, Vickers did a semester in Russian and his university transcripts tell us that he also took several courses in the language so it's possible that he was assisting there."

The slightest beat follows that information, just long enough for the room to process and adjust before McCord is back on a roll, tapping a rhythm on the board in the room that brings up photos of Vickers at work, of his apartment and, finally, of an alley in New York City where his body was found at 5 a.m.

It's the fourth image in the series from the alley that makes her blood run hot and then cold, the fifth one that has her digging her fingernails into the palm of her hand to keep her focus as her boss continues to rattle off facts that she is sure she will need to know later.

"Beckett, you are taking point on this one. You and your team are out on the next flight to New York, and I expect you to coordinate this investigation from the 12th Precinct. You also might want to brush up on your Russian," McCord tells her, crystal blue eyes cutting a clear path over the noise and the adrenaline pumping through Kate's body to send the message home.

It's a clear one. One that speaks of how serious this case is, how little time they have for her personal history to get in the way. How it will absolutely not be tolerated if it _does _get in the way.

The team disbands a moment later, armed with a folder full of information and procedure. Still, Kate falls behind feigning absorption in the material within the folder until she is alone and can put a neutral mask on her face when she lifts her head.

McCord has left the final picture on the screen and the full photo takes up the whole frame. Vickers back holds three bullet holes, a snapshot of a violent and painful death, but she only has eyes for the other figures. Lanie hunched over the body to take a sample, Ryan scribbling in his notebook, Espo's hands in mid-air as he tries to figure out the track of the bullets and the location of the shooter.

And then Castle, kneeling over the body with the same look of intense concentration that he so often used to figure her out. He's gazing at the body in that same way, oblivious to the camera, so completely in his element of a good mystery that it takes her breath away.

After four years she's going back to what she left behind.

It's terrifying.

* * *

_Song: 'Hercules' by Sara Bareilles from 'The Blessed Unrest'_


	3. Chapter 3 (Eden)

_Let me paint a picture for you, then I'll have to teach you to see it_

_Illustrate the remnants of the life I used to live here in Eden  
Rolled a lucky pair of dice, ended up in paradise_

_Landed on a snake's eyes, took a bite and ended up bleeding._

* * *

Crowded. It's the only word that comes to Kate's mind as she pulls her suitcase behind her and dodges the seas of men, women and children who fill the terminals and hallways of JFK airport. She's been back for less than five minutes and can already feel the tension weighing down her shoulders, the churn of anxiety coiling low in her stomach as she navigates the long hallway towards the luggage carousel. Sunday afternoon is full of families returning from a trip, couples leaning into each other as they wait for luggage and cabs from a weekend away. No one really seems to be traveling on business but her which is a bit of irony when she considers that this is her hometown and she feels less welcome here than the 17-year-old girl to her right that looks fresh off the bus from the Midwest.

Kate rolls her shoulders and lightly works the muscles of her neck as the track in front of her sputters to life. Priority luggage is a perk that once she'd never had imagined paying for, some needless concept that was built for impatient people. Still, having her large dove-grey and slate blue suitcase roll towards her as the first from the plane makes her smile and she scoops up both it and the matching duffle with ease.

The Manhattan skyline blooms out from the west side of the car as she snakes her way through Queens on the 465. She holds her breath as they approach the East River, and merge onto the Midtown Tunnel. The lack of anything beyond orange cones and yellow light unknots her nerves somewhat, though the feeling rushes right back as the cab curls out onto East 34th Street. She sits with her back presses into the seat, her eyes drinking in every detail that she can process through the blur of tears.

Somehow she manages to keep them from spilling over, bites her lip hard enough to draw a bead of blood that brings the taste of iron to her tongue. The taste focuses her, reminds her that she is here for a job and that all the rest of it will have to wait. Though, deep down, she knows that such a desire is all but impossible because its been four years - 1404 days since she's been in the city.

It's good to be back. So good.

* * *

"I'm telling you, he's working in a front! It all makes sense! Vickers is found shot in an alley miles from where he lives or works, three quick taps into the back. He makes his living working as a translator and a guide for the UN, but his roommate couldn't tell us the last time he had given a tour or assisted a diplomat or their guests. Transcribing documents? Translating text and running errands? That's what a guy of his talent was doing. Not likely," Castle says, giving the football that he has been spinning back and forth in his hands a soft toss towards Esposito.

The detective catches the pass easily enough, though he has to lean away from the murder board so that the pass can reach his waiting hands, "Bro, it's the UN, what makes you think even the coffee guy doesn't have a Ph.D?"

"And just what are you implying, Detective?" Rick volleys back, folding his hands over his chest as he stretches back in Ryan's rolling chair.

"Not that you have a doctorate," Espo replies with a roll of eyes, launching the ball in the air so that it sails the length of the empty hallway in time for Kevin to turn the corner and catch it around the sheet of paper in his hands.

"Touchdown!" Sully cries from his desk, lifting his hands in the air like a game referee, "Six points for the Jets," he continues as the three other men groan. The rookie has an affinity for the Mets, Jets, and Knicks. The ultimate glutton for punishment, it would seem to Esposito.

"Ballistics finally came back on the gun," Ryan reads from the paper, cutting his eyes up just long enough to give an under-handed toss to Sully and lightly kick the back of his chair so that Castle will vacate the premises, "It's a .45 Glock, registered to a farmer named George Winters in Virginia. I called him this morning and he says that the handgun, and a couple of hunting rifles were lifted from his truck last winter when he and his two sons ate at a diner in Newburgh - they were driving back from a hunting trip in Vermont, stopped to eat and came back to find everything stolen. Local PD never had any leads, told him they didn't have much hope of recovering the weapons."

Ryan looks sorry that the gun seems to be a dead end as he takes his seat at his desk, meeting Castle's eyes as Esposito studies the board and looks for the connection that somehow they've all missed. This case is practically a black hole, stacks of information that fills in gaps but shows no connection or correlation. It all seems completely random beyond the fact it feels like the exact opposite.

"What are we _missing_?" Espo hisses, hands flaring out to rest on his waist while he glares at the board like that will provide him for answers. He turns with a sigh after a beat, catching the ball as Sully let's it fly and immediately flips the pigskin back to Castle.

The writer never catches it, the ball taking three bounces on the scuffed hardwood before flipping end over end and coming to a rest at a pair of feet encased in black stiletto boots. He's not quite sure if his imagination is getting the better of him, or if the bullpen actually freezes and sucks in a breath, but there is suddenly an absence of sound. Nothing but a ringing in his ears as his continued anger wars with the shock and relief of seeing her again.

She's even more attractive than he remembers, those ridiculous and familiar shoes paired with a black suit that looks custom made to fit her body. Her white button down is utilitarian, screams Federal Agent, while her red coat compliments the golden tones of the long tumbling curls of her hair, the bronze flecks that stand out in her green eyes as she finishes unwinding the purple and red scarf from her neck and drops both it and the coat on the chair that rests next to her desk.

_Former_ desk, he reminds himself, his brow furrowing as the anger burns out all other emotions and he turns on his heel to walk towards the break room before Beckett can even open her mouth to say a word.

* * *

It's like being doused in ice water as Castle retreats from the bullpen to slam the door of the break room. All of her plans to walk in and play it calmly, to explain to Ryan and Espo her reasons for returning and the need for their help on the case, all of it evaporated the second she saw Castle. Not because she wasn't angry, four years had done little to relive that particular emotion, but the look on his face. It had stolen her breath and every thought and good intention in her head.

For that first moment, he had looked at her like he used too. That look that had led her to break up with Tom and put her heart on the line.

Her eyes roll on cue as the door slams against the frame, and Kate barely bites back the nasty retort that curls on her tongue about spoiled children. Instead she tamps it down, shaking out her hair to free it from the collar of her blazer and stepping forward to hug both Ryan and Espo in turn. Even that contact feels stilted and awkward, the result of four years spent communicating largely through texts and emails.

She hadn't made it back for Kevin's wedding. Hadn't even met his wife.

"Beckett, what brings you here?" the man asks, already reaching in his pocket to pull out his phone. For a moment she thinks that he is calling Lanie, and Kate opens her mouth to say that she already knows, that she texted her from the cab. Suddenly the phone screen is in her face and there's a photo of an adorable baby in a pink fuzzy hat and white onesie with a pink gingham elephant.

She gasps purely on instinct, her mouth still open as she lifts her eyes from the screen to Kevin and gives him a full smile which the new father matches.

"Meet Sarah Grace," he says with a puff of his chest, and Kate suddenly realizes that the baby is wearing one of the presents she bought once she heard the news.

That gesture feels a bit like forgiveness from Ryan, she thinks as she gathers him in for another hug. This one far less awkward and more of a silent apology because she _is _sorry for not making more of an effort for the two men who are her brothers in every way but blood. Somehow she'll make it up to both of them.

* * *

Rick crumples onto the couch in a daze, stares blindly at a burned spot on the floor while his whole universe tries to set back into place. He can feel the surge of adrenaline brought on by the shock humming in his blood, the steady tap-tap of his feet and they move to try and release some of that built up energy as his hands clench against his knees so hard that the knuckles blanche a creamy white.

He stays in that position for a long time, only shifting back against the cushions as his lower back muscles begin to seize up. He also realizes that he is unconsciously grinding his teeth together, a habit born from years of keeping his thoughts trapped inside his head. He releases the tension reluctantly, afraid that he will shoot up off the sofa and lay into Kate Beckett in the middle of a bullpen where she is now debriefing the entire floor and the four members of her team that arrived about an hour after she did.

Sully had invited him to join the fray, the rookie's polite suggestion silenced at the glare Rick had shot over his right shoulder. No one else had come near the break room since that interaction, though it was as likely that Beckett was keeping them busy as anyone unwilling to disturb him.

Still, the writer in him enjoyed the imagery of a bunch of cops avoiding a room because of the righteous swell of anger that issued from underneath the door.

If she was smart, Beckett would also keep her distance. Long enough for his control to roll back in place, long enough for Rick to gather his things and make an exit because he couldn't stay here. Not with the infuriating, maddening and breathtaking creature again inhabiting the walls.

If he stayed, he'd go crazy. If he stayed, she'd break him completely.

If he stayed, he'd have to admit that even four years of distance, anger and completely _hating_ her hadn't added up. Because, damn it to hell, he still cared.

He cares a lot.

* * *

_Song: 'Eden' by Sara Bareilles from 'The Blessed Unrest'_


	4. Chapter 4 (Splintering)

_A/N: Woo, woo! Thanks for all the reads/favs/reviews. I really really appreciate them! Couple of things for this chapter: 1) you've got to suspend belief about the amount of time it takes to get from point a to point b in Manhattan traffic and 2) there's some slight language. I'm keeping the rating at T for now but if they continue to insist on dropping four letter words, I'll upgrade it. _

_Also, the song for this chapter is by Shawn Klaiber but Sara contributes some piano playing and background vocals. (I'm only cheating a little!) It's not on iTunes as far as I know, but you can find it on YouTube if you'd like to listen. _

* * *

_Was I so wrong being such an open book?_  
_Trusting so soon, losing all the tender time it took to love you,_

_Just to crawl away with broken wings,_

_and the pieces of my heart still splintering._

* * *

The rain had been steady ever since she had sat down to dinner, lingering over burgers and fries with her dad while he made her laugh. Being apart from him was one of the worst things about her move to D.C., and though he was good about visiting, though they had begun a ritual of a trip to the cabin and to some other place in the world that he'd always wanted to see every year - that and regular phone conversations just weren't enough.

Her dad was the only person she had left in her family. Her last blood relative. Of course she knew he was proud of her, she'd heard his encouragement to keep her head up and keep pursuing her dreams for the past decade but it wasn't the same. She missed their regular diner chats, their trips to Citi Field when she had a day off that coincided with a home game.

She missed home.

They had parted with a long hug after their two block walk from the diner to his building, Kate promising to call him the following morning to find more time to spend together. Her dad had offered his bed, asked her to forgo the government paid hotel in favor of his one-bedroom apartment. She'd declined on principle, unwilling to send her own father to an indefinite number of nights on the couch and also aware that she needed her own space to work.

With her dad safely inside the lobby, she turned back towards the downpour that coated the streets. Finding a cab would be a nightmare in this weather, though Kate also didn't cherish the six long blocks to the closest subway station. It was better to take her chance with a taxi.

Five different yellow vehicles rolled past as she stood in the rain, her bag providing very little cover for her head as one four door sedan slid to a stop and deposited two passengers. The men scurried across the sidewalk to the Italian restaurant as she slipped into the cab and doled out the address for the hotel.

The cabbie was preparing to merge into traffic when the door opened again, leaving Kate's space invaded by a black trench coat and dark hair as the man struggled to also close his umbrella and the door at the same moment. "Corner of Broome and Crosby, please," the man says as she sits pressed against the opposite door.

They notice each other at the same time, the odd synchronicity that had once made them such a good team manifesting itself in something horrific as Rick's head turns towards her and Kate steels herself for whatever will come next.

She gets a stuttered swear, voiced so low that she would miss it if she didn't know him so well and, after a beat, his body lurching towards the door he just used to enter the vehicle. He doesn't want to be near her, she _knows_ that, but Kate's body reacts before she can stop it - her long fingers grasping the thick material of his coat to reign him in, "Don't,' she says quickly, withdrawing her hand as he jerks his arm away, "It's raining, and I'm going the same way."

She expects a direct no, for him to scoff at her and maybe tell her to go to hell. This neutral expression and rigid tension is a new side of Castle, but she takes the bull by the horns and instructs the driver to deliver him to the address provided.

They make it four blocks before he snaps out of his daze, slumping against the seat with a grunt as his face remains turned firmly out the window. It's such a contrast to the early days when she had given him the cold shoulder, when he had prattled on constantly and rooted around until there were tiny little chinks in her armor that he could worm his way in.

It's less than three feet of space between them, but Kate feels like its an ocean. With each wave brings a new emotion, her fondness for the good times at war with the utterly wretched way she felt as he overlooked her for Gina. She misses him desperately at one light, wants to scream and rip his hair out at the next while Castle sits unmoving like a statue.

Times Square's bright lights glow as they slide past the intersection of 42nd and 8th Avenue, the billboards and flashing signs making her brave with the familiarity. Usually Times Square is the last place she ever wants to spend any length of time with its crowds and bustle, but part of her feels called to the iconic sight when it speeds past.

Instead, she angles her body towards the writer at the window, "Castle, about this case…" Kate begins, taking a deep breath to organize her thoughts.

"Don't," he says abruptly, cutting his eyes towards her as his jaw tightens, "I'm not involved in this case, nor do I want to be."

She tries not to let the surprise and the hurt show on her face, furrowing her eyebrows and the muscles of her jaw to eliminate whatever waver that tries to make itself known. She can read him exceptionally well, almost as good as he can read her, though its not as it the subtext had been subtle.

He doesn't want to work on the case because she is here. He doesn't want anything to do with her.

The thought rolls around in her mind as they continue along 8th Avenue, jerking to a halt at the 23rd street intersection for sudden red light when she sits up straight and levels her full glare at him. "What is your problem?" she finally asks, ignoring the myriad of other questions that she could begin with, forgoing all the tip-toeing and dancing that had made up every waking hour of their time together, "I'm just here to do my job. I wouldn't have removed you from the case, you are a valuable asset to that team….'

Rick snorts in reply, and she makes out the outline of his eyes as they roll in her direction. It's the dismissiveness of that action that burns her, adds another level of heat to the annoyance that had already curled in her gut. "It has nothing to do with my value, Beckett," he spits at her and, in an instant, Kate sees red.

"Then what the hell, _is_ it?" she snaps, beyond caring about keeping her composure. She's moved from nostalgic to livid in the space of fifteen city blocks. To hell with it all.

"It's _you_," Rick breathes out, 'It's the way you walked in that damn place like you owned it, how you expected the entire _fucking_ precinct to be thrilled to see you. That no one should be a little angry or upset that you boxed up your life and left without a goodbye. Kate Beckett, Federal Agent, come down from her mighty perch to mingle with the lowly ones who built her up,' he hisses, turning his face towards her own so she cannot miss the full extent of his glare.

"So no, I don't want to be involved. I don't want to know about suspects or phone records. We don't need you anymore, we've gotten along just fine without you and your federal task force. I've gotten along just fine without your eye rolls and dismissive nature and, in a couple of weeks this will be wrapped up. You'll tiptoe back out the way you came, expecting praise for a job well done. Go back to your life in Washington," he continues without pausing for a breath, "and we will go back to existing without your insufferable presence."

The cab comes to a stop again, this time at the intersection of Houston and Broadway, and he takes the opportunity presented by the red light to toss a couple of twenties towards the cabbie and instruct him to take her to her hotel.

He's out the door and lost in the crowd of pedestrians before she can blink.

* * *

They sit in silence, the steady drip of the faucet in the corner accompanying both of them while Lanie digests the replay of her cab ride with Castle.

When Lanie finally speaks, it begins with a sigh and a slow pat against Kate's hands where they lay folded on the tablet.

"Sweetie, I'm sorry to have to say this but, what did you expect?" she questions softly, watching as Kate's face shifts into one of surprise, "Now, I'm not saying that he did the right thing by unleashing it all on you like that but, honey, you hurt him just as much as he hurt you."

Kate bristles at that, huffing out a series of breaths even as she comes up short with a legitimate protest. Because she did know that leaving was going to hurt Castle, that her choice to ignore his attempts to contact her would make him angry.

The trouble was that she thought he deserved it at the time. Now, when faced with the consequences of it all, she's not so convinced.

Retaining even the most fragile methods of contact would be better than the complete barrage of hate she'd seen directed at her in the backseat of that cab.

"I just couldn't face it Lanie," she finally says, "He spent all that time trying to become part of the team, and then it was so much more than that. Even when I kicked him out, I missed him and how he made a bad day better. That's why I let him come back, it's why I broke up with Tom and then he just…..dismissed me," Kate finishes softly, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as the memory replays in her mind, "It's what I was always afraid of with him, that I'd be another conquest, just another through the revolving door. In the end, I wasn't even worth that much, not really."

Lanie gives her a long look once she falls silent, and she can see her best friend measuring up how much she wants to say versus how much she _should_ say.

"Kate, you have to forgive him. He spent all that time waiting for you, trying to get the smallest bit of leverage, and then suddenly you were with Tom. Have you ever thought about why his ex-wife was suddenly back or have you been studying this entire situation with your stubbornness to be right leading the way?" she asks her friend, "I know you. You get hurt and you shut everything and everyone out until you can process it. You analyze it and find the faults, then you hold on to them like a lifeline. But it's not always that simple, life is usually more than black and white."

She has other things to say, more questions piled in her mind that Kate needs Lanie to help her process. Instead, Espo breaks up the meeting with a text for an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn and Kate departs the morgue with guilt and regret added to an already heavy load.

* * *

_Song: 'Splintering' by Shawn Klaiber (feat. Sara Bareilles)_


	5. Chapter 5 (Not Alone)

_A/N: Oh my gosh! I can't believe over 100 people are following this story. That's so cool, and I'm so appreciative of everyone who has read and reviewed. I love hearing what you think and reading your hopes/questions for the story. _

_Couple of notes for this chapter: 1) DUMBO stands for 'Directly Underneath the Manhattan Bridge Overpass' (it's where I lived when I was in NYC and its a fantastic neighborhood that you should visit if you ever go. You will fall in love), 2) There is no Castle in this chapter and 3) This chapter is fairly case heavy. As you'll see once you've read it, this case is as important to the story as the personal drama. _

* * *

_More than sister silhouette,_

_Something sinister and strange_

_That I haven't seen yet._

_I don't wanna be alone, _

_Sky, don't let the sun go,_

_I'm not ready for the darkness, _

_Swear on a heartless soul. _

* * *

The body of Rylee Matthews lies on her stomach, head turned so that long blonde curls fall down her back and into the layer of dirt and grime that has built up in the warehouse. The DUMBO area is one of the more exclusive neighborhoods in Brooklyn and this Brooklyn Heights warehouse had been slated for demolition.

"Not much use for crumbling warehouses when there's a condo to be built," Ryan quips as he slides the purse found beside the body into a clear evidence bag and passes it off to a crime scene tech.

Kate hums her agreement, too busy studying the body as the others process the scene. Though she never visited the Vickers crime scene beyond the photos there are still similarities and, judging from the decay of the body and the time of death given by Perlmutter, Matthews was killed hours before.

But three shots to the back, with what looks like a .45 barrel. It's not a coincidence and all three of them know it.

"Yo, Beckett," Esposito's voice cuts across the quiet murmurs of the techs and officers and Kate turns to see both of the boys grinning at her. For a moment she's completely confused, unable to connect the big grins with the grim scene in front of them until, suddenly, she gets it. They are smiling because this is familiar.

Old habits, she thinks when she returns the grin and gives herself a moment to revel in the first sense of normalcy that she's had since stepping off that plane at JFK.

"Yes, Espo?" Kate questions after their brief exchange, wiping the grin from her face and schooling her expression into one of stern concentration that only has them both smirking at her while Javi rattles off information gathered from the contractor and developer who had found the body.

"The building is scheduled for demolition at the end of the week - the developer was bringing in his contractor to walk through the place because they are interested in saving some of the iron work and beams. Want to put them back in these condo's that they are building…." he says.

"Wrought iron and old beams are really popular now. Something about combining contemporary design with old world elements - city chic I think they call it," Ryan says casually, looking proud of his knowledge as his partner lifts his eyes from his notes to glare at him.

"Really, bro?" Espo asks, leaving the briefest pause before he launches into the rest of the story as Kate tries not to laugh. "Anyway, Matthews lives in Brooklyn Heights going by the address on her driver's license. I'd say she was in the wrong place at the wrong time but this neighborhood is relatively safe and the MO is similar enough to the Vickers case that Brooklyn PD called us to work it."

"Same style killing, same caliber of gun? Yeah, I'd call you too,' she says, turning back towards the body to watch Perlmutter take fingerprints from the girls left hand. "I'm going to get my team on running down all of her information, let's go by her apartment and see if she has a roommate or anything has been disturbed. By the time we get back to the precinct we should have a full work up."

* * *

The apartment had been a bust. The studio on Cranberry Street had been inside a four story brownstone, a space that was neat and tidy. Nothing seemed missing and no roommate to speak of. Neighbors seemed to barely know the victim, indicated that she worked long hours.

"Matthews moved back to the city in September. She had been living in D.C. and working her way up the ladder with page and personal aid jobs to Congresswoman Elizabeth Tyne. Tyne gave her the reference and pressed her to apply for the current position - she's a speechwriter and assistant campaign manager for Senator William Bracken," Beckett reads, "Works from his Manhattan office, travels to meet Bracken and his staff as needed."

The information is already up on the white murder board, as well as the touch screen that have been set up side by side in the conference room. It's where they had all navigated, and now sit surrounded by piles of paper, coffee cups and take out.

She had left breaking the news of the woman's death to her parents to Ryan and Esposito, having needed to provide updates to both Captain Montgomery and her own boss. Montgomery had been cold towards her when she had delivered the news, a complete change from the hug and attitude of welcome that had come with her arrival that Kate almost felt like she had whiplash. He had dismissed her the moment she'd finished. And now the office door sits closed and the blinds drawn, a sight which brings a feeling of unease slithering across her skin whenever she lifts her eyes from the stack of information that needs her to sort through and find connections.

She's highlighting a repeating pattern of phone calls when Ryan busts into the room, dropping a photo album and a pair of gloves on top of the records. Her slowness to put on the gloves proves too much for him so he opens the book himself.

"Look," he tells her once the album falls open to the correct page, and Kate's eyes shift to see three photos of a younger Rylee Matthews wrapped in the arms of their first victim, Jonathan Vickers.

"Ryan...what…" she stutters, her eyes wide in surprise as her former partner sinks into the chair beside her.

"Talked to her parents, showed them the photo of Vickers because of the MO. Her mother started crying, told us that Jonathan had been Rylee's boyfriend all through their four years together at Yale. Turns out that they even moved to the city together after they graduated and broke up once Rylee moved to D.C.," he narrates, "CSU brought us the photo albums directly from the apartment and will be running both vic's prints to see if either of them paid a visit to the other."

Kate is up on her feet so quickly that she almost trips over the wheels of the rolling chair, strolling to the open door to shout across the bullpen towards the break room. Through the window she can see Agent Arrison, a petite redheaded girl who just signed up with the AG office in October, bringing a cup of coffee to her lips, "Arrison, I need college transcripts from both Jonathan Vickers and Rylee Matthews. Run their phone records, pull any text messages they exchanged over the past six months. Get Hendricks to help you if you can't get it done in two hours."

She halts long enough for Arrison to nod at her, and then Kate is back facing Ryan though she doesn't see him at all. Instead her mind is whirling at a frenzied pace, storing the information she knows about the Vickers case in a neat timeline with that of Rylee Matthews.

Before long, she and Ryan are hard at work on both the white board and the touchscreen to create simultaneous timelines. Once it is running across the screen there still isn't a discernable connection but Kate can feel the answer is now at the end of the road they've just stepped on.

"Espo and I will look into friends, especially mutual ones. Matthews also has a sister who is flying in from Los Angeles tonight - she's agreed to talk to us in the morning," Ryan tells her just before her team enters the room and bring fresh stacks of paper that total the period of time the two victims shared.

* * *

"She was adamant that Rylee was in some sort of relationship with the Senator," Espo says as he brings the beer bottle to his mouth and takes a sip, "Talked about how she would come back from business trips and hardly be able to talk about anything but Bracken. But, if she pressed her for details, Rylee would go quiet or say she wasn't allowed to talk about it. Her sister also said that she had a relationship start a few months after she moved down to D.C. but that she kept that quiet as well, told her that the guy had to keep his privacy."

"You aren't telling me that our victim is sleeping with a Senator…." Kate mutters, a curse ready on her tongue as she pulls her hands through her hair.

She gets a shrug in response as Esposito and Ryan clink their beer bottles together, "Won't know till we ask. He'll be in town Friday for an event, thought we'd do it then."

Kate takes a long drink from her bottle, her mind already lining up the steps they need to go through to try and find something to tie Bracken to a personal relationship with the victim. It's been a long couple of days, long enough that she turned her whole team loose at 3 p.m. and spent the next couple of hours simply getting organized before joining the boys for a drink.

Even though they are all off the clock, she pulls out her phone to send a group text and instruct her four team members on the first steps in the morning - pulling financials and phone records that could point to a mistress. The replies are quick, leaving her with a satisfied little smile as Lanie steps up to the booth and Ryan slides into the empty seat beside her so that the medical examiner can sit next to Espo.

That move has Kate raising an eyebrow in the direction of her best friend, while the other woman cuts her a look that promises a conversation to be had at a later date.

They settle in easily enough, trading stories back and forth while Kevin shows off photos of Sarah Grace doing mundane things that are somehow completely adorable. He's so enamored with his newborn daughter, so completely in love with his wife, that Kate finds herself a little overwhelmed with emotion. She's thrilled for him, but there's a small part of her that is jealous while another portion of her is simply ashamed that she missed out on all of it.

One of her best friends had fallen in love, gotten married and had a baby and she'd missed practically all of it. Hell, it appeared Lanie and Javi had some secret friends-with-benefits thing happening that she'd never heard about.

"I'm sorry," Kate blurts in the middle of Esposito's recount of an evening out with some friends from his special forces days. Her cheeks burn red immediately following her words; embarrassment from interrupting the story, for her heart speaking without the permission of her brain, for abandoning three of the people who stood by herself no matter what had happened.

She notices that they all exchange long looks. That suddenly Kevin is tapping on his phone while Javi busies himself with peeling the label from his beer bottle. Predictably, Lanie is the only one who meets her gaze head on though the spark in her friend's eyes soon have Kate's dropping to the table in defeat because she can't hold up to the anger that all three of them have kept a lid on for so long.

The silence stretches on for a while and the tension slowly builds in the air between the four of them until, finally, Kevin speaks up, "I...don't...geez…." he sighs, palming a hand over his face and giving himself a slight shake, "Look, Beckett, I think we all understand why you left," he begins after a glance to both Espo and Lanie, "And it's not even that you left, not really. That job, your job, was an amazing opportunity and I don't think anyone can begrudge you for taking that chance."

"It's the rest of it," Lanie jumps in, her voice carrying that lilt that tells you not to argue until she's had her say, "You ran off because a boy broke your heart. But you forgot about the rest of us who have only ever supported you. These two only got texts and emails from you, I was at least afforded regular phone calls and Skype conversations but you froze out the two guys who had your back long before Castle came around."

Neither of the boys say anything to support or dismiss Lanie's words, but Kate knows them and can see the truth of it in how they each sit ramrod straight. Even now, the truth of the matter manages to hurt both of them though they are burying the idea under a level of cop meets male strong-hold that rarely allows them to show emotion.

Especially emotions that will allow them to be vulnerable.

All three of them seem to have run out of words as the quietness returns. She can feel the seconds ticking by in which she has to make up for her actions. With each moment the validity of any apology she can give means a little less and her mind scrambles for anything she can say to make a dent in what she has done to them - to her friends.

"I'm sorry," she says again, hating how pathetic and ineffective those two words sound, "I left with the greatest intentions, to come back and visit you, to invite you to D.C., to call and try to make sure nothing changed. At first I just needed time, time to settled in to a new city and a new job. I wanted to get to know people and make a life before I stepped into my old one and then, suddenly, a year had gone by. So I let the texts and the emails be enough…."

She also didn't want to make them choose in the silent war between herself and Castle. She still had Lanie and, unconsciously, Kate had given the boys to him.

That thought hits her with the force of a train. The air rushes out of her lungs in a huff that she hopes is covered with the emotional side effect of her confession. Her bottle rises to her lips and Kate drains the liquid from it, buying enough time to staunch the flow of emotions.

The three other occupants at the table notice it anyway, but remain silent on the matter as Kate wrestles with what they have all known. It had never been a secret to any of them that she had run away, had been given an incredible opportunity at absolutely the wrong time. And none of them had blamed her for taking the job, but in conversations since that summer Javier, Lanie and Kevin had all agreed that the methods in which Kate Beckett had departed New York City had been all wrong.

Beckett had ran away from her embarrassment and the pain it caused. She'd broken down a piece of the wall that she used to keep people at arms length and been prepared to invite Castle inside while he had countered her with his ex-wife after weeks of watching her flirt with Demming. It had been like watching a train wreck. How the two of them had danced around each other, out of step and off rhythm until the needle had slipped off the record and ended the music. The trouble of it was that the record had never stopped spinning.

Four years later, it was still going strong.

"Beckett, I'm going to be bold enough to tell you that we all forgive you," Javi says, watching as Kevin and Lanie both nod in agreement, "Over the years all of us have been furious with you but the support has never wavered. We want you to be happy and if D.C. is what does that then we can't hold it against you."

"All we wanted is an apology, for you not to cut us out of your life because of what you feel Castle did to you," Lanie adds softly, watching as Kate's eyes blaze a little at the implication that Castle didn't do anything wrong.

Maybe the dance wasn't over after all, she considers as she finishes her drink.

* * *

They had all lingered for another hour, tension lifted as all four of them buried the hatchet and let Kate's mistakes stay in the past. She had hugged Kevin for a long time before he departed to get home to his wife and daughter, walking him out onto the street to explain that she truly regretted missing out on the biggest events of his life and that she wanted to meet both Jenny and Sarah Grace.

His agreement and reassurance that they were okay had settled her nerves so that when Lanie departs back to the lab for an incoming body she can handle being alone with Javi as they close out the tab and have the bartender call for two taxis.

She never expects Espo to interrogate her, and he doesn't as they lean against the brick building. The silence isn't completely comfortable, but there's no resentment or anger between them just a mild curiosity that she can feel him directing at her.

"He loves you, you know," he finally says, the words coming out low and quiet. But Kate still gasps, physically flinching from the words as she turns her body away from her friend and staggers several steps forward to a bench.

He follows her silently, taking a seat and gently placing one hand against her knee. The contact has her flinching yet again, placing a glare firmly in Espo's direction that has brought down many a suspect in interrogation, "Why would you say that to me?" she asks, hating the slight waver in her voice that betrays the anger she's trying to project.

"Because it's true and because you need to hear it," he answers patiently, no hesitation in his eyes as they meet hers directly, "Because you've spent four years hiding in a job that is no more fulfilling than what you were doing here, because you aren't as happy as you want everyone to think you are and, most of all, because you deserve more than what you are allowing yourself to have."

Kate doesn't notice she's crying until she sees the wet splotches on the material that stretches across her thighs, and the realization breaks the dam of emotion that she's been battling back since her first second inside the Precinct. The sob comes out of her throat as more of a whine as the tears come thick and fast while Espo draws her in for a hug and keeps her tight against his chest until she's gotten it all out.

"I've known you for almost ten years, Beckett. I've seen you at your worst, and then I saw you with Castle. That guy? He made you happy. He brought something in your life that I've never seen you have before," the words are quiet, no more than a murmur against her ear while Kate's head rests on his shoulder when a yellow cab slides up to the curb, "I know he hurt you but, Kate, he didn't do it on purpose. And now, you have hurt him on purpose. Four years of it."

She knows that she should nod in agreement, should hug Espo with every ounce of strength and gratitude that she possesses but she's frozen with exhaustion and the words won't come. But he seems to understand as he smiles in her direction and helps her to her feet, leading Kate towards the cab and making sure she's tucked inside.

"You have to make it up to him," he adds with another smile, giving her a wave once the cab door has closed and she's on her way down Second Avenue with a vision of Espo standing under The Old Haunt's entrance burned into her mind.

* * *

_Song: 'Not Alone' by Sara Barellies from 'Kaleidoscope Heart'._

_Additional Note: Yep, Castle still owns The Old Haunt._


	6. Chapter 6 (Chasing The Sun)

_A/N; Two chapters in a day! Why? Exposition. Hang tight though, more personal drama is a coming. _

* * *

_You said, remember that life is,_

_Not meant to be wasted,_

_We can always be chasing the sun, _

_So fill up your lungs and just run,_

_But always be chasing the sun._

* * *

"Richard, have you even gone to bed?"

His mother's voice rolls over him like some horrific cross between nails scraping against a chalkboard and a bath of ice water, jerking him out of the place he had found halfway between deep sleep and coherently awake.

He is with the world enough to see her roll her eyes and toss both hands into the air. The bright teal and hot pink of the robe she wears swishes around her ankles, the bounce of her red hair catching in the sunlight when she twirls out of the room.

Even partially asleep, Rick doesn't miss the cluck of her tongue or imagine the long pull of air that she makes on her walk from his office door to the kitchen.

If there is one thing he can depend on in this world, his mother's disapproval of the majority of his actions would be it. Though even that falls second to the theatrical flair that bleeds into every cell of her body.

He's wedged himself back into some awkward huddle of skin and bone in the leather armchair, a soft snore issuing from his mouth once Martha walks back into the room. The bottle of water is wedged underneath one arm as she carries a cup of coffee and the bottle of aspirin in her hands; both of them are deposited on the side table before she drops the water into her son's lap and watches him jerk back to life.

"Really, Richard, enough is enough," she sighs, aware that he is a grown man and perfectly capable of making his own decisions before she even begins with her lecture. She's been watching for three days as he sat slumped on various surfaces inside the loft, or staring blankly at the laptop that sits discarded on the floor, "You are a grown man, not some teenager nursing his first heart break."

She is given a grunt of reply, a swallow of pills and coffee, and the creak of leather as her son flops back against the chair with a heavy sigh.

"Mother, not now,' he eventually says, his voice low and heavy. It's not the lack of sleep or the slight hangover she is sure he has giving his voice that edge and it's a memory of the lost look in Richard's eyes the day he returned from the precinct that prompts her to ignore his request.

Instead of leaving him to it, Martha sinks down into the chair across from her son. She holds her vigil in silence, with almost forty-four years of maternal experience telling her that if she bides her time he will crack. Even as a child, silence had done him in.

"I finally got the chance to tell her what I thought," Rick speaks, the words coming out slowly and appearing to cost him a great deal of concentration if his furrowed brow is anything to go by, "I went to dinner with those screenwriters who want to option Nikki Heat for a television series. Beckett and I ended up in a cab together and I just lost my patience with her. How she expects people to be happy to see her, that she doesn't hold herself accountable for walking away…..I listed all the things that I've thought about since the last time I saw her and I walked away. Left her in that cab looking as if I'd ruined her entire world."

Martha knows what comes next before Richard ever says the words, a knowing smile and a shake of her head confirming as much for him. "You thought you'd feel better once you had your say…." she prompts as he scrapes a hand through his hair.

"That's the problem," he admits around a groan, "I _do_ feel better. Like some of this bitterness I've been carrying has evaporated because I finally got a chance to get a word in, to show her that her thoughtlessness did have consequences. So what does that say about me?"

He voices the question with a face full of anguish, and the sadness she can see in his sky blue eyes has Martha aching for her only child. In that moment he looks just like the five year old boy she so clearly pictures in her head, askew hair and pillow creases on his face when he first asked her why he didn't have a dad.

"Darling," she sighs, clasping one of his hands between both of hers, "It says that you have been walking around in a miserable state for years. You haven't been happy since she left, though I will concede that you've put on a hell of a front. We both know that you cared for her, and I think that those feelings probably haven't gone away just because you've been angry with Kate."

"But this is an opportunity for you," Martha continues when he makes no move to speak, "Maybe this is fate's way of giving you the chance to clear your conscience of all that bitterness, to finally let her go so that you can move on. You can't have a future when you are being haunted by the past, and you can't be happy when you are consumed with the emotions that she left behind."

"You think I should forgive her…." he says, no trace of a question in his voice as Rick lifts his eyes to meet his mother's.

"I do," she answers quietly, rising to her feet and pressing a lingering kiss to the crown of his head, "Because you, my boy, deserve all the happiness in the world and you aren't going to find it until this is behind you."

She gives him one last pat, this one on his shoulder, before sweeping out of the room to leave him with his thoughts.

* * *

A breakfast of an omelet, coffee and fruit and one obscenely long shower later, Rick feels a bit less like the shell of a man he'd been pretending to be since escaping his cab ride with Beckett.

He's still angry, the righteous heat of it still boils under his skin whenever his thoughts drift to that September day at the precinct, but he has resolved to stop allowing it to dictate his activities. The best thing to do is to continue living and no longer concern himself with the affairs of Kate Beckett.

It's unfortunate that his phone is full of texts and voicemails from people who keep mentioning her when he finally turns the thing back on.

One message stands out from the others. It's a quick message from Captain Montgomery, one which his screen tells him that the man had left at 6 a.m. - far too early for Rick under normal circumstances - which consists of two lines.

"You and I need to talk. It's urgent."

It's startlingly succinct. Eight words that convey a bevy of emotions, draw up dozens of questions that send his writer's imagination into overdrive and leave his fingers itching to put pen to paper. But he can't deny the prickle of fear and anxiety that rises across the back of his neck at the icy hit of the Captain's voice, a new level of a man he thought he knew very well.

Still, he doesn't hesitate to call and invite Montgomery to his loft.

* * *

_It's a really old city, _

_Stuck between the dead and living, _

_So I thought to myself, sitting on a graveyard shelf,_

_As the echo of heartbeats, from the ground below my feet,_

_Filled a cemetery, in the center of Queens._

* * *

Calvary Cemetery sits bordered by Brooklyn's still rough-edged Greenpoint neighborhood and the noisy double-handed fist of the Brooklyn Queens and Long Island Expressways. He's visited several times over the years, using different areas as scenes for novels or as a jumping off point for an idea, and each time finds himself struck by how decidedly unrestful the place is.

Sure, there are parts of it that exude a quiet somberness that you'd expect in the land of the dead but other areas seem packed with sound and life. Even the stunning views of Manhattan stretching out in the distance isn't enough to convince Rick that this a good place to be laid to rest.

He'd rather go for cremation, maybe have his ashes launched into space.

He is working out the logistics of that (_brilliant_) idea as Roy Montgomery's form slides into the corner of his vision. The man is walking slowly, picking his way carefully through the row of tombstones while he waits at the appointed spot.

Rick's sense of foreboding had only grown when he had arrived in front of the two graves, the matching stones looking almost new comparable to those that surrounded them. Jack and Dick Coonan, killed four days apart, one at the hand of his brother and the other by the hand of Beckett in order to save his own life.

Even now, he still has nightmares of the gun pressed to his side. Of he being the one that bleeds out on the floor while she desperately tries to keep his heart pumping and begs him not to die.

"Castle," Montgomery greets him, extending his hand for a brief shake while he considers the two stones in front of them, "Odd place to meet, I know, but this seemed like the best place."

Rick wants to ask why, along with a thousand other questions, but he holds his tongue as Montgomery takes a low breath and seems to steel himself for whatever comes next. Once the words start to flow out of the officer, his breath becomes shallow as he listens to a story so horrible and unimaginable that he has to brace himself against the urge to both vomit and strangle the man in front of him.

It's unbelievable that he's held back all of this time with valuable information, names and dates that could provide solid leads and strong evidence towards the one thing that Beckett has worked her entire life for. And it doesn't matter that he's furious with her, that hours ago he was content with the idea that she no longer had a place in his life. Suddenly he can imagine nothing more than hunting her down and spilling out every last detail., to grab her hand and follow her into hell itself so that she can find justice for her mother.

Instead he simply gapes at the Captain long after the man has stopped talking.

"And that's…." Rick stammers, stopping to clear the gravel from his throat, "thats why you took her as your protege, because you felt guilty," he snaps, watching Montgomery's shoulders cave in on themselves as he sighs.

"I didn't know it at the time, not when I first met her. It took a few weeks before I put it all together but it seemed like a chance to make up for my past mistakes. To put a bit more good back into the world after what we did," the man admits.

He stops short of rolling his eyes, bites down hard enough on his tongue that he tastes blood lest he point out that if not for Montgomery and his friends that Kate wouldn't even be a cop. She'd be happy and whole rather than the broken and battered version he knows so well.

He can't imagine a time where he has ever wanted to physically harm someone more than Montgomery as they stand in front of the Coonan's graves.

"This case she is working, these two bodies, it's all going to come out. And she needs someone in her corner, I can't be that person. People are always watching, always waiting for a moment to strike and that time is coming for me. All I can do now is find someone to take a stand with her," Montgomery explains, his mouth opening to ask a question that Rick never hears as the rapid fire of gunshots suddenly fill the air.

He hits the ground hard, hears the impact of steel embedding into marble somewhere above his head as the cop beside him draws his gun and fires in return. Rick knows enough to stay on the ground, shielding himself as best he can behind the stone three down from Jack Coonan.

Minutes or seconds pass, he can't be sure which, when it happens. The bullet finds its home inside Roy Montgomery's chest as the man aims over the side of another stone, striking him with expert precision and enough force that he flies into the air and lands partially against a stone barrier that separates two graves one row behind.

Rick gives himself twenty seconds, listening intently for more shots or the reloading of a gun. When he's answered with silence he goes on the move, staying low to the ground on his trek to the fallen Captain.

The man's chest is still moving, a sucking sound coming from his mouth as he takes in air. It's all instinct from that point, classes of CPR and a research week of field triage for the Derek Storm books flowing into his brain and choking off the emotional reaction that he wants to have. Instead, he scoots both of them into the shelter of a large monument and rips off his jacket to apply the fabric and a generous amount of pressure to the entrance wound.

It feels like hours later when his clumsy fingers finally dial 911 and ask for an ambulance as Montgomery continues to bleed out over the dead grass.

* * *

_Song: 'Chasing The Sun' by Sara Barellies from 'The Blessed Unrest'._


	7. Chapter 7 (Between The Lines)

_A/N: Hello, hello! Space between updates because I discovered in my outline that I had left a big case-related plot hole. Couldn't continue writing until I wrapped that up, lest I dig myself in deeper. Happy to report that I've dug myself out and patched in the hole and now you get the big Caskett chapter you've been waiting for (sort of). _

_Another note is that this song, Between the Lines, has a completely different meaning in its full context. But the lines I used fit this chapter perfectly. The songs always aren't going to fully encompass what is going on, but maybe just a particular line or two. Also, language warning. I probably just need to bump the rating to M for it._

* * *

_Time to tell me the truth, _

_To burden your mouth with what you say,_

_No pieces of paper in the way,_

_Cause I can't continue pretending to choose, _

_These opposite sides on which we fall,_

_These loving you laters if at all,  
No right minds could be wrong this many times._

* * *

An afterthought.

That was what Rick felt like he had been in the two hours since he'd watched Roy Montgomery take a bullet. He wasn't self-centered enough to believe that he should have even registered on the list of priorities for the officers who responded to the scene, to the paramedics who had surrounded both he and the Captain and then taken oven with the CPR.

He'd been pulled away for his own physical inspection, and then pushed into the red Charger that he had spent many an afternoon in. He and Ryan had followed the ambulance out of the cemetery, the sirens and lights giving Rick just enough hope that the Captain would somehow be alright.

But then they'd come back to the precinct, exited the elevator to a place exploding in chaos as the cops within channeled themselves into putting the full force of the NYPD behind nailing whoever had shot their Captain. It had buoyed his sagging spirit, given him a bit more lift in his step when he approached the familiar line of desks to throw himself into the fray and help where he could.

Ryan's light tug against the elbow of his dress shirt ended that dream, as the detective directed him to the right. The hallway was the narrow one on the floor, the one that contained offices for other administrative personnel and the discarded interrogation room that they only used when cases were stacked so high that the place couldn't get by with just the two that held court at the opposite end of the bullpen intersection.

It had crept back in once the door had closed behind him, a bottle of water and two aspirin waiting on the table. He was now a witness in a shooting or, at the worst, the murder of a cop - of a precinct captain. He couldn't help because he was now part of the case. And, to make it worse, he _knew _things now. Things about Montgomery that would no longer allow him to see the man in a bright light. Their conversation and the man's admissions had tainted their relationship for good, whether that continued in death or in life.

At the very least, the Captain would go to jail. Rick wasn't naive enough to think that Montgomery hadn't known that while confessing to him. And Beckett? Surely the man didn't expect him to actually keep something of this magnitude from her.

"Mr. Castle," the voice of the woman in question sounds from the door as it opens inward, Beckett's form strolling in to view with a black folder in her hands. He knows from experience that it contains all the pertinent information that they know about the case, a list of questions written somewhere in the notepad that lines the right side. She always made sure to hide those, both unwilling to let a suspect see her line of thinking and, he guessed, not wanting anyone see her work.

Rick doesn't imagine she was one to let kids copy her homework in school.

"Agent Beckett," he responds, his voice matching the snarl that she used to spit his name as Beckett drops her folder onto the table and then folds herself down into the chair across from him. Her eyes are steel, her jaw hard while she stares him down.

It's hard not to crack under that gaze, and despite their history he has the urge to confess everything he knows and probably things he has never realized. She's a formidable woman on a normal day, in a normal situation, and this is neither of those things. But just as he opens his mouth to let something slip Rick's brain catches up and renders him a different phrase.

"Wait, why am I in here?" he blurts, ignoring the upward curve of her eyebrow or the tick he can see in the hollow of her left cheek, "I know I'm a witness but you don't put witnesses in interrogation," he continues speaking as the detail oriented section of his mind logs how Beckett's fingers tighten against the pen in her right hand, how she takes a steadying breath through her nose to prevent from lunging at him or stabbing the pen into his hands as they flutter over the stainless steel tabletop.

"Actually, why are _you_ in here?" Rick adds quickly. His eyes narrow at her, the anger blazing in her eyes at war with the ice queen persona she is trying to send him.

"Do you think you could shut up?" Kate snaps after a beat, giving the pen a temporary reprieve from her death grip when she tosses it down in disgust, "You are in here because you are a witness to the shooting of Roy Montgomery, because the man in question is a high ranking member of the New York Police Department a full investigation is being launched in order to find the shooter. Until further notice you will be assigned a protective detail, as well as any members of your immediate family."

He makes no effort to stop the track of his eyes as they roll, nor does he hide the scoff of disbelief while she gives him the standard NYPD run around. It's absolutely infuriating to be treated like he doesn't know all of this, like he hadn't expected it, and most of all as if he is a complete stranger that Beckett wouldn't know from a knock-off vendor on Canal Street.

"And now that you've told me the things I already know, how about explaining where you fit in?" he asks, a sticky sweet smile on his face that does nothing to hide the sarcasm and bite of the question. If anything, it makes the words all the more condescending. "Or are you just going to take over the entire precinct as well?"

No answer comes, just pointed silence while Kate pretends to read the information in front of her so that she doesn't jump across the table and slap the man across from her. Five minutes alone and she wants to murder him, to punch him until some of the absolute rage and fear have subsided.

It doesn't even matter that most of it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the man who mentored her lying in emergency surgery. She's already heard that they don't expect Montgomery to live through the day.

"I want to know one thing," she finally says, chancing a look from above the edge of her folder at Castle. He's sitting with that 'rugged millionaire playboy' smile, arms folded over his chest as his eyes glare daggers at her.

It's certainly a study in opposites. One which she ignores to drop the folder onto the table again.

"You and Captain Montgomery were found a row across from the graves of Jack and Dick Coonan," Kate says, her voice full of an icy indifference that she has never been able to feel where the Coonan brother's are concerned, "I want to know why. And I want to know now."

"Tut, tut, Beckett," he replies, pulling from his seemingly endless well of anger at her to downplay the panic and dread that her question brings. Rick latches onto the other emotions, feeding himself a movie reel of memories of a life where the woman across from him cut him off and cut him out. And its more than enough to push out the rage, to extinguish the whisper of secrets that Montgomery told him in that graveyard, "Using a 'Federal Investigation' for your own personal crusade, what would the President say?" he questions, thankful that he has moved his hands down below the table when she lunges to her feet with a growl.

Kate's hands connect with the stainless steel on a loud thud, the impact shooting through her palms and into her arms. For a moment all she can see is red, all she can think of is the thirty different ways she can haul Castle out of the chair and inflict injury. Instead, she digs the heels of her hands into the edge of the table and glares at him, gritting out her threat, "Would you like to go to jail for obstruction of justice?"

"No," Rick answers immediately, "But as you don't have legs to stand on as far as this shooting goes, I'm not really that worried about spending the night in the slammer. "

He has her there, and Kate knows it and some of the bravado she's been pushing at him evaporates at the truth of the matter. Slowly, she gives up the position of power she had gained by leaning over the table at him and busies herself with gathering her things. "I'll find out, Castle," she warns him as she approaches the door, "I know it isn't a coincidence, your deflection screams confirmation."

The door slams shut behind her as he mutters a string of curses under his breath. It's not until she's been gone for several minutes that he realizes he never got an update on Montgomery.

* * *

_Leave unsaid unspoken,_

_Eyes wide shut, unopened,  
You and me, always,_

_Between the lines._

* * *

"The landscaper gave a good description of the car, a black Chevy Yukon. New York plates, though he didn't catch a tag number. He was adamant that the thing was nondescript but the high rate of speed and the sounds of gunfire gave him a reason to remember," Esposito is updating a small huddle of detectives and officers when she returns from the interrogation room, the glare still on her face so that when he turns around, Espo's eyes widen.

"Whoa, Beckett, he rattle your chain that much?" the man questions, watching the woman across from him take a steadying breath that he takes as positive answer to the question.

"Espo, what is going on here?" Kate wastes no time in voicing the confusion that has been rolling around her mind, "Montgomery was shot beside the Coonan brother's graves, Castle is clearly hiding whatever reason they were out there…." she leaves the question unvoiced.

"You don't know anything yet, they might have just been talking about Castle's involvement here. He hasn't been around much lately, spends most of his time writing or in the Hamptons, I think," Espo says, though the excuse is flimsy even to his own ears.

She presses at the patch of skin between her eyebrows where a steady pressure has begun to build, the sigh that comes out of her mouth one of pure frustration. "He's still in the box, I didn't tell him anything about Montgomery. Just that he would now have a protective detail due to being a witness in the shooting."

"I got it, Beckett," the man assures her, lightly cuffing her shoulder when he brushes past, "Ryan and Sully are scrubbing video footage for that SUV. CSU found tire marks at the scene, made casts, think your FBI buddies could get us a match?"

"Yeah, sure," she answers absently, her mind still firmly in that cemetery with the Coonan's as Esposito rounds the corner to talk to Castle.

* * *

When the news had arrived, everyone had agreed that a celebratory drink was in order. Truthfully, it wasn't even good news but the sheer relief that Montgomery had made it through surgery had given everyone a lift. Beckett had ordered dinner for the officers and detectives on the night shift, and bid her team farewell for the weekend. Most of them had headed back to D.C., eager to see their own friends and family after a week of file building and chasing dead ends.

She had chosen the corner of the booth, Ryan on her right side while Sully held court at the end so that Lanie and Esposito could sit side by side. Kate suspected they were holding hands under the table.

Conversation had been slow, each of them absorbed in their thoughts. Sully had kept most of the stilted lines flowing, a commentary on everything from the horrible year professional sports teams had in the city to which Star Trek character was the best.

Kate had taken to calling him Mini-Castle in her head whenever his random selection of topics cut into her obsessive analysis of whatever the writer was hiding and why he and Montgomery had been in the cemetery.

So when the voice of the actual Castle curls over the table, she's jerked from her internal investigation with a gasp. Her eyes dart over before she can control her reaction, and the sight of Castle in a tight green sweater that somehow makes his eyes look an even brighter shade of blue brings a curl of want dancing in her stomach that serves to make her incredibly uncomfortable. She hasn't had a feeling that involved regarding him since her decision to break it off with Tom and it completely floors her how, in this moment, its almost impossible to remember that he broke her heart.

It doesn't help when Kevin abandons her with the excuse that he needs to get home, that he drops a few bills onto the table to cover his drinks and Sully seems oblivious to the clear signals that both she and Esposito are giving him to move next to her. Instead, Castle is forced into the tight space beside her and the tension in the booth skyrockets as his hip accidentally brushes her own and Kate flinches as if she's been burned.

No one at the table misses it, though none of them dare make a sound. Even Sully seems to realize that he's inadvertently had a hand in creating the awkward spark in the air.

"Aren't you supposed to be at home with a security detail?" Kate finally asks when the silence proves to be too much, fighting to keep her voice neutral even as their conversation that afternoon flares bright under her skin.

"Great thing about security, they go where you go. I needed to make a visit to talk with my manager about expanding the selections offered on tap, and to pick up things in the office so they came with me," Rick points back towards the bar where two officers sit in plainclothes as both Esposito and Lanie wince.

"Bro, she didn't know…." Espo begins, his words cut short by Kate's voice snapping over his.

"You own this bar? You have got to be kidding me…" she levels the words across the booth at her friends, both of whom squirm slightly. Clearly they never bargained on her finding out or had hoped the news would provide some misguided reconciliation between she and Castle.

His body turns suddenly, the line of his leg and his arm brushing against Kate just before his eyes meet hers. She's still trying to control the part of her that has given up the game on being attracted to him, the steady chant of _want, want want, _that whispers in some part of her brain. But he's looking at her with this serious gaze, this stare that does little to ease the tide, "I bought it after you left," he says simply.

"Clearly," she scoffs, so out of sorts from the surge of emotions that she defaults to annoyance. Kate is close enough to feel him stiffen in response, to see his throat working with some difficulty to keep from taking the easy bait and instead drink from the pint in front of him.

"What, did you think my life stopped because you cut yourself out of it?" Rick asks, so matter of fact in his phrasing that she presses her back against the wall next to her in an effort to get some distance from the onslaught of emotions.

Lanie and Esposito take that as a cue, both of them quietly bidding farewell to Rick and Kate who don't seem to notice. Javier practically hauling Sully from his chair also passes them by while Castle holds her gaze and she rails against the instincts to both fight him and run away. She wants to do both, she wants to do neither of them, and in the end all she can do is stay pressed against a rough brick wall and try to breathe through it.

"It didn't, Beckett," he continues, that same soft and sincere tone in his voice, "I picked myself up, I moved on and I have a good life without you. A great life. I bought a bar, I saw my kid graduate from high school and go to Columbia. I've dated other women, I've travelled to places I always wanted to go. My life went on just fine without you."

Of course there are a million ways in which his life remains broken. None of those women that he has dated, that he's invited into his bed be it for a night or a few months, have held a candle to her. It's one the reasons that he convinced himself to hate her. How pathetic he felt knowing that he was still so invested in a woman who wanted nothing to do with him

Hating her had become easy. Easier than the unrequited emotion that was eating him alive.

"I never said it didn't…." she eventually chokes out, watching as his eyes darken from the bright cerulean she's admired for most of the night into something more dusky.

"But you expect to know everything," he breathes, and she feels the familiar surge of anger snap back into place, "You are angry that Espo and Lanie didn't tell you this was my bar, you are angry that I didn't let you walk in and forgive you immediately. You want to keep me at arms length but you can't stand the idea that I'm furious with you, that I now have secrets and experiences and friends you've never heard of."

Kate rolls her eyes at that, turning to face him head on, "God, you have such a high opinion of yourself," she hisses at him, aware that there are people less than 10 feet away, "Are you so self-centered to think that all I do is sit around and pine after you?" It's a rhetorical question that she powers right through, reaching out to poke two fingers into the center of his chest, "Because if I wanted you? I'd have come back and had you, you selfish jackass."

He recoils from her outburst as if she'd slapped him, the smirk on his face melting into something wounded that tears at the portion of her that has always cared about him. She regrets the words immediately, has her mouth opened to apologize when Castle retreats from the booth and strolls away from her.

She jumps into action a few seconds later, sliding her body away from the leather in time to see a trap door close at the far end of the room. And Kate doesn't think, she just reacts and follows, her progress halted until she figures out the trick of the door and can slip inside.

She's barely halfway down the stairs when his large frame fills the doorway, eyes glinting in her direction, "Leave me alone, Beckett," Castle snarls, stalking away as if he can't bear to look at her.

Kate supposes that he can't after what she just hurled at him. God, she's such a bitch.

"Castle, wait…." she says, scrambling down the stairs in his wake, finding him sprawled on a large leather sofa with his hands covering his face, "I shouldn't have said that. I just...you…..I'm fucking mad at you okay!" Kate grits out, going for the hard truth instead of the endless subtext and double meanings that had defined their relationship. "You are an ass, and I can't stand you most of the time but that was uncalled for."

Rick springs off the couch with the speed of someone much younger, three long strides alternately crossing the distance between both of them and another two that pin her between his body and the brick wall. His fingers are digging firmly into her upper arms, holding her in place but careful not to bruise and there's an instant of electricity that shoots through her body from his touch. A spark of something between them before his mouth crashes against hers.

Her reaction is instant, the grunt of surprise falling from her open lips even as her body arches closer. It's full of fire, all teeth clashing, tongues fighting and the two of them pouring four years worth of issues into this one kiss. He's completely devouring her, pressing her body into the rough brick behind her, unrelenting as his tongue maps the curve of her mouth as his teeth pull and tug at her lips before he dives in again.

All she can do is hold on, give back to him as much as she gets in the few moments that Castle pulls back from her, hum a sound or two of encouragement whenever he does something that sends a shock of pleasure in a straight arrow to where he has wedged a leg between hers and she's unconsciously started rolling her hips.

They both are lost in the moment, groaning and encouraging the other until his hands break the divide between the waist of her dress pants and the white sweater she's wearing. The contact of his hands against her skin snaps Kate from the daze Castle has put her in and then she's pushing him, repeating the words off and no at him until he's let her go and is standing several feet away.

They stare at each other with wide eyes, Kate valiantly trying not to look at how swollen his mouth is from kissing her, how rumpled his hair is from her fingers or the way his sweater has moved to the right. She's trying not to remember how he tastes of Guinness and the slight hint of what she thinks is Thai food, how he had grunted in encouragement when she had bitten on his bottom lip and sucked it into her mouth.

She is completely ruined now. Completely and utterly screwed because its all she can think about. She hates him, he's broken her heart, and now all she can do is stand in this odd trap door office and try not to literally jump his bones.

Judging from the predatory look Castle is giving her, he isn't faring much better.

* * *

Oh God, he kissed Kate Beckett.

No, he made out with her like some reckless teenager. Pressed her against a wall and devoured her like some wild animal.

Did he hate her? He did. He had spent the past week trying to keep himself in check, to weather the storm of emotion that her reappearance had brought into his life. Telling himself that a couple of weeks were nothing, that she'd solve her case and head back to her life, that he'd be better off without her. That he didn't want her, he didn't need her, that he hated her.

Except he didn't hate her. He couldn't hate her, even when he was furious at her. And he was furious. He was still absolutely raging mad and going to demand answers to all of the questions that were slowly killing him. He wanted to know why she left, he wanted to know how she could be so selfish, how she could hurt him so deeply.

But he also just wanted to kiss her again. To make that breathless little moan slip out of her mouth when he slid his tongue over hers and gave a gentle tug on her hair.

"Shit," Ricks groans, pressing his hands against his eyes while he wanders as far away from Kate and the wall as he can get. He feels like he should apologize to her, except he isn't sorry and he knows that she was every bit as willing to engage in that little display as he was.

"It's okay," she says softly, sinking down onto the floor and drawing her knees to her chest while he paces the long expanse of space in front of his desk.

"I just…..I've wanted to do that for years and you were here and I didn't want to be angry anymore so I just...and you….." he stutters, giving a vague gesture towards his mouth that has her smiling this full and bright thing that makes his knees a little weak.

God, he is so thoroughly screwed. One make out session and he's already ass over feet in love with her. Damn her to hell, she's as addicting as every vice he could possibly take up. She's also just as likely to destroy his life.

"It's okay," she repeats, drawing in a long breath, "And I am sorry, for earlier."

He acknowledges that slowly, puts a pause in his pacing and sends him back across the room to kneel in front of her. "Look, Beckett," Rick says slowly, "I don't trust you. I'm still mad as hell at you, and that hasn't gone away. You are the most selfish and frustrating person I have ever met in my life, and what you did? It's not an easy thing to forgive. I don't even know if I can but….I'm going to try because I can't keep going like this."

He watches the emotions that pass through her eyes, the anger and the hurt, the surprise and the acceptance. But he doesn't understand the depth of pain that runs through all of them. Somehow, someway, he's done something to injure her just as deeply as she has him.

But he doesn't ask, Rick knows she'll never tell him. Not right now.

"I don't trust you either," Kate says, but her nod is acceptance to whatever truce they just agreed too.

When they head back up to the main floor, they seal it with a shot of whiskey.

* * *

_Song: 'Between the Lines' by Sara Bareilles from 'Little Voice'._


	8. Chapter 8 (Uncharted)

_A/N: So, at the risk of full disclosure, there was supposed to be another scene after the one that closes this one. It's written but I thought this was a powerful enough close. So sorry for leaving you on a small cliffhanger. I actually hate doing that to readers but, sometimes, its necessary. _

_Also, before anyone freaks out, I assure you that all is not sunshine and rainbows in Caskett land. Just be patient. _

* * *

_No words, my tears won't make any room for more,_

_And it don't hurt, like anything I've ever felt before,_

_This is no broken heart, n__o familiar scars,_

_This territory goes uncharted._

* * *

They sleep when she sleeps, which falls into what Kevin has begun to think of as naps - two or three hours before Sarah Grace is up and requesting food, a diaper change or merely to be held.

He and Jenny are both exhausted, but neither of them have spent a moment regretting the experience. Even bone tired, neither of them would rather do anything than watch their daughter stretch and snuffle as she drinks a bottle.

But that love doesn't extend to the chirp of his cell phone at 6:30 on Sunday, the sound creating a simultaneous action where he buries his head under the pillow to avoid the noise while his hands dart to the bedside table to try and stop the racket before it wakes his kid.

He's giving a jaw cracking yawn when he finally answers the phone, muttering his last name long before he realizes that it's Sunday and he isn't on call.

"Kevin, I'm sorry to call you…." the voice of Evelyn Montgomery jerks the new dad wide awake, shooting a surge of adrenaline through his veins as his mind spins with all of the awful reasons Captain Montgomery's wife would be calling at this hour. "...but my house has been robbed."

The emotion is heavy in the woman's voice, laced full of the pain and worry that he knows she is still under while her husband lies in a hospital bed. Now to find her home has been invaded...well, he can't begin to imagine.

"Okay, Evelyn," he says instantly, reassurance laced in his tone as Kevin sits upright in bed. He feels more than sees Jenny shift behind him, awake and full of questions at his left shoulder, and he reaches his free hand out to lace their fingers together. A promise for an explanation once he's finished the call, "You need to leave, go to a neighbors, get in your car and sit down the street. Just don't stay there alone in case they come back. I'll call it in and be right over," he says, stopping short of telling the woman not to touch anything. It hardly matters in the home she's lived in for twenty years, her prints will be everywhere and CSU will take hers a well as both of her children's as comparisons. Plus, she's been married to a cop for thirty-three years, she knows the basic rules.

He tells Jenny what he knows while he dials dispatch, the sum of his knowledge stated in three or four sentences while his wife looks at him with horror. He shares the feeling, but years of training force Kevin to move, to walk towards the closet and pull out clothes for the day as he talks to the dispatcher on duty.

By the time he's called in the report, and roused Espo from bed to join him Jenny has made two cups of coffee. He's finishing the last button of his shirt when he steps into the living room, watches her blonde hair move as she tucks muffins into a plastic container and turns to smile at him, "Be careful," his wife tells him with a gentle press of her lips to his cheek.

He returns the gesture, picking up the container and the two mugs once he's wrapped in his coat.

It's time to work.

* * *

The entire house has been searched, furniture tipped over, books ripped open, electronics smashed. It takes most of the day for the crime scene techs to process everything, to bag up any evidence and dust for prints or look for fibers.

It's well into the afternoon before Evelyn can begin to pinpoint the things which are missing,. It's nothing that seems to be of any real value aside from the sentimentality of family photo albums and a video of her wedding. A cracked safe, Montgomery's missing spare piece and some files he stored inside the iron box seem to be the only things unaccounted for.

Still, a protective detail accompanies Evelyn back to the hospital where her husband remains in critical care while Ryan and Esposito carry a box full of negatives back to the precinct and put a call in to Beckett to join them.

* * *

_Each day, just counting up the minutes till I get alone,_

_Cause I can't stay in the middle of it all, _

_It's nobodies fault, _

_But I'm so low, never knew how much I didn't know,_

_Oh everything is uncharted._

* * *

"Look, Beckett, we know its not your case so thanks for coming," Esposito says, watching how her eyebrows draw together as if she's trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

"You kidding? It's Captain Montgomery, I'm glad you called," Kate tells him, popping a fry half drowned in ketchup into her mouth and chewing.

She had been thrilled at the distraction though there were no plans to share that with the boys. Her productivity had been embarrassingly low all day and had truthfully amounted to not much more than brunch with her dad and attempting not to climb the walls of her hotel room while her mind dwelled on what had happened with Castle.

Kate wasn't proud of it, but she had spent the day waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the regret to creep in, for the surge of anger at letting him kiss her, the fear at what it all meant. She wasn't dumb enough to believe that wouldn't arrive, that she was going to continue coasting in this bubble of physical attraction and the talented things Richard Castle had used his mouth to make her feel.

Nearly sixteen hours later, her sense memory had no problem of drawing up how he'd tasted, the firm way he'd pressed her against the wall and taken what he wanted.

There's a vivid replay of the scene rolling through her mind when she notices both Ryan and Esposito are smirking at her, that Ryan is practically waving a hand in front of her face to get her attention. The vivid blush that stains her cheeks is something that she can't hide, and the boys grins grow even more wicked.

So she tries to prepare herself for whatever they are going to volley at her, to think up some retorts that will knock them on their asses and convince them to leave her alone. Instead, she's saved by the beep of the computer and the pop up on the large FBI issued video board that tells the trio that the negatives have scanned and been uploaded to the NYPD server.

Kate has to bite back the smile at the sheer disappointment that reflects back at her from both detectives as she pulls the keyboard towards her and begins typing commands to bring up the gallery of photos, "So, what are we looking for?" she questions, answered by the sucking sound of Espo's drink as the dredges are drained from the bottom.

"Don't know," Ryan responds with a cut of his eyes at his partner, "Evelyn was sure that the only things taken came from Montgomery's office, every other room had been searched and tossed but that seems to have been for show. Plenty of valuable objects, jewelry, electronics and the usual so it wasn't about selling stuff for money. The robber took his spare gun, some files from his safe and a shelf of photo albums - she said there were four of them, one just of shots from the wedding."

"What sort of files? Financial records?' she asks, watching Ryan shrug.

"Evelyn didn't know. She said that Montgomery kept his weapons and ammunition in there, their life insurance policies, anything else of importance is kept in their safety deposit box. She mentioned that he used to keep case files inside when he worked on them at home, but he hadn't done that in years. The only reason she noticed anything was missing was because the stack left was much smaller than what she remembered," Espo picks up the story, the edge to his voice telling Kate that the sum of the parts doesn't make a whole picture.

"What is going on…." Kate mutters as much to herself as the men in the room with her, fingers flicking over the computer keys until the photos fill the entire video board.

Evelyn's organization skills are an asset, the negatives stored in a file box according the year. The first few slides are from when she assumes the Montgomery's were dating as the first large pile of photos comes from their wedding, the first album that the woman had pointed towards being taken.

All three of them are taking in the snapshots of the two lives, eagle eyes looking for anything that could point them towards a lead. None of them having a clue just who or what they really need to look for.

But Kate's gasps fills the room on the fifteenth photo, a horrified hand flying up to cover her mouth when her eyes widen.

Three men fill the screen, all wearing mustaches that were in fashion in the late seventies and early eighties. They all look happy, big grins on their faces as they look at the camera, the third man holds up a bottle of beer as if he is toasting the photographer.

It's that man whom she doesn't know, and the one she has no interest in. Instead, Kate's eyes focus on the far left of the photograph and drink in the face of a much younger John Raglan with Roy Montgomery's arm draped loosely around his shoulder.

Montgomery had known the man who investigated her mother's murder, and never told her. Montgomery was shot near the grave of the man who killed her mother. Montgomery was shot in front of Castle.

Kate doesn't believe in coincidence.

She's on her feet and inside the elevator before either Ryan or Esposito can ask her what is going on.

* * *

_I won't go as a passenger, no, _

_Waiting for the road to be laid, _

_Though I may be going down, _

_I'm taking flame over burning out._

* * *

He had woken with the urge to write, the words burning him from the inside out. Rick had taken a seat at his desk at 10 a.m., paragraphs and sentences sparking out of him that drowned out the rest of the world. His mother departing for a week long escapade in Chicago with some of her acting students came and went with only monosyllabic words and grunts. He'd paused long enough to wish Alexis well on her day of classes, reminded her of the security detail that had her slamming the front door in response.

His daughter didn't like to be shadowed any more than he did. It didn't matter that it was a necessary evil.

Still, Alexis' rage over her temporary move from her two-bedroom apartment with a friend and back into the loft, of the bodyguard and the nuisance couldn't distract him from the matter at hand. He'd fallen back into the world of Nikki and Rook, three solid chapters flying from his fingers until the team's rookie detective lay dead with a shot to the chest as Rook tried to keep him from bleeding out.

Sure, he'd already killed the character Montgomery had inspired in his third book, but he'd also resurrected the man in the form of the newest member of Nikki's team. Anderson Hunt was a smart and attentive cop, quick to learn, fast to draw and had managed to make a place for himself inside the unconventional team. He had been created to stick for the long haul, but now he was dead on the ground in a scene so true to life that Rick felt a little sick.

He had closed his laptop and abandoned the office for the lure of coffee, wasted three hours watching completely mindless television in order to gather the courage to re-read his day's work. Most of it was good, most of it was useable and would likely see the final edit but killing off Hunt - that had been emotion, a purge of the horror he still felt whenever he closed his eyes. He couldn't kill off the young detective, it was as good as watching the Captain die in that cemetery.

Dinner and another mindless movie with Alexis later, Rick is back in his chair with another cup of coffee while he slowly reads his work. A sentence tweak here, a word change there, the first chapter remains largely unaltered and he's just emailed the first two off to Gina when the sound hits his ears.

The knock on the door is a surprise due as much to the security detail who vets anyone coming through the lobby or steps off the elevator as the late hour. The clock on his smartboard reads 11:47 p.m. once he places his coffee on the edge of his desk and moves to answer the door.

He feels the muscles of his face morph into surprise when the long caramel curls and Burberry coat clad Kate Beckett stands on the other side, so much so that he stutters for a moment. He literally chokes on the words that want to escape because he's suddenly remembering how, just twenty-four hours ago, he'd had his tongue in her mouth and his hand against the warm skin of her waist.

"Beckett," he finally croaks, pulling the door with him so that she can enter and the reflection of tear tracks stands out in the lamp light that casts over her face when she crosses the threshold into his home.

She takes three steps inside, waits until the door has closed soundly behind them before she levels the words between them, "Captain Montgomery was trained as a rookie cop by John Raglan. Raglan was the investigating detective in my mother's murder," Kate states it all very simply, almost robotically, an effort that he suspects is constructed to try and keep some emotional distance from the betrayal that she feels from her mentor. Four years have changed a lot of things, but Beckett is still Beckett. Always trying to be a solid foundation and to never let anyone see the cracks.

But he can see them, he can see the hollowness in her eyes, the pure exhaustion and deep hurt that flashes in them while she swallows around the lump of emotions. And its all the worse because he knows the full story, how Johanna Beckett was killed, how truly senseless it all was. How well intentioned Montgomery had been, and how misguided his efforts have gone.

Rick also knows that he can't lie to her, not now. That he's been given something he had never wished in even the darkest moments of his anger. He's been given the power to break Katherine Beckett, to bring her to her knees with the knowledge that she's spent almost fifteen years trying to acquire.

He's also absolutely certain that in handing it to her he will be watching her self-destruct.

He can't bother to analyze the lack of shock that arrives with the realization that breaking this woman in front of him is going to crush him like nothing else ever would; that he, too, might implode over what he has to tell her.

Somehow, Kate senses all of it. Maybe it shows in his eyes, maybe its in the gentle way that he reaches out to take her hand. He doesn't know, and he doesn't ask. Instead he steps forward, watches the green and brown of her irises bleed into black as her pupils dilate. She's terrified, he can practically taste the fear that rolls off her when he cups the back of her head and he's sure that the shiver that curls across her skin when he slowly touches their mouths together has nothing to do with anticipation.

Kissing her seems like a terrible idea but he's never been good at resisting Kate Beckett. And if this is his last opportunity he knows that he has to take it, that even though he hasn't begun to forgive her for always running away, from cutting him out and being so careless with his heart and his emotions he can't imagine just letting her leave without knowing that on some level he is desperately sorry and has always cared about her.

It's a terrible idea, but he just can't let her go. Not like this.

It's an apology when he kisses her for the second time, a slow burning contact that rips a sob from Kate's throat before she even knows what he's apologizing for. But she gives in, completely collapses and embraces the moment for what it is because she knows her world is about to cave in. This might be the last time she can even bear to set eyes on Castle. And it hurts, it hurts more than the moment where she watched him walk away from her, more than four years of regret and lonely nights.

She wants to beg him not to tell her, to just lie to her so that her world doesn't shatter into millions of pieces. She wants to throttle him for not telling her the moment he found out. She wants him to kiss her until she can't remember own name.

She wants a thousand things, and Kate knows that she will get none of them.

Rick doesn't let her go easily. Long after he's finished caressing her mouth with his own he stays connected to Kate. His hands are busy mapping and learning the curls of her hair, cataloging the different shades of brown and mocha, the soft caramel that frames her face and makes her look so much younger than he remembers. He keeps his forehead resting against hers, occasionally brushing his lips over her own until she grips his hands.

And then she speaks his name, his given name, and his eyes flutter open to meet hers. The apology in them is clear as day, the reluctance at forcing him to give her the knowledge she needs, the ambition and drive for justice that she can't put to rest. She won't apologize for that, not that he'd ever ask her too.

He gives a nod, draws her in for one last press of their mouths and then leads her by the hand into his office where a mock murder board of all Montgomery's information sits hidden on a jump drive inside his desk.

* * *

_I'm going down, _

_Follow if you want, I won't just hang around, _

_Like you'll show me where to go,_

_I'm already out of foolproof ideas, _

_So don't ask me how to get started, _

_It's all uncharted._

* * *

_Song: 'Uncharted' by Sara Bareilles from 'Kaleidoscope Heart'._


	9. Chapter 9 (Gravity)

_A/N: Reviews are great. Leave them if you please! So many of you are reading this that I haven't heard from and I really want too! _

_This is one of my favorite Sara songs, I can't listen to it without ending up a little sad. She wrote it about her first big heartbreak, but the lyrics also lend themselves to someone coping with addiction (my interpretation!). I feel like I will use this song later on in the story because there is one verse that I didn't use and it has a perfect fit for an upcoming scene. So stay tuned!_

* * *

_Something always brings me back to you,_

_It never takes too long,_

_No matter what I say or do,_

_I'll still feel you here till the moment I'm gone.  
You hold me without touch,_

_You keep me without chains, _

_I never wanted anything so much, _

_Than to drown in your love, and not feel your reign._

* * *

She takes his hand once he's inserted the jump drive into the smart board, clutching at Castle for the lifeline that she is momentarily allowing him to be. He's moving slowly, stretching the seconds to put off the inevitable, and she's not sure if she should be grateful for the delay or snap at him to get a move on.

Kate settles for the light pressure of her thumb tracing endless circles against the sensitive crease of skin between his own thumb and forefinger, the action reassuring him with words that she can't possibly dredge out of her brain in its current state.

She wonders if this is how an alcoholic feels after an attempt to stay sober; how her father felt in those years where he'd give it his best shot for a few weeks and then fall spectacularly off the wagon into drinking full bottles of Scotch or downing a gin and tonic with his breakfast. She's falling headfirst into a rabbit hole, willingly picking up a bottle of alcohol or sticking a needle in her veins. This case, this life altering moment, is her addiction and she's just as powerless to stop herself from going back to it as she was a decade ago.

But Kate still leaps, surging towards the board when it springs to life and devouring the information in front of her like a drug addict looking for his next fix. She doesn't notice the way Castle follows her forward, how he gently guides his arms to wrap around her and hold her up, her eyes are only for the giant flowchart that features a photo of her mother at the center. Of the cast of characters whom also have photos and information she could have never hoped to attain, even as a Federal Agent.

In fact, she expects McCord will fire her if she gets wind of any of this. She had been warned before leaving D.C. about entangling personal relationships with her work, and Kate isn't so naive as to think she's been putting her in best effort on the job she was sent back to Manhattan to do. In fact, the case has barely registered on her radar since hearing Montgomery had been shot.

The information on the board is presented in disjointed form, the facts and dates lined up under photos rather than in a timeline. In the adrenaline surge that she's riding on, processing any of it like this is beyond her mental strength and the grunt of frustration she voices is subconsciously done. She should have known Richard Castle would anticipate her need for organization as the screen flips to a streamlined version of the event. Facts are listed under dates, black and white letters stealing her breath when she takes in the situation that led to her mother being taken from her.

_Undercover Agent Bob Armen is murdered during a kidnapping attempt. Joe Pulgatti framed by kidnappers, three NYPD cops._

She had done her research before she came, making the drive to the hospital to talk to Evelyn about John Raglan. The woman had only vaguely recalled the officer, telling Kate that Roy's time with the man had ended once they began dating. She had only met him once, a congratulatory dinner after their engagement, the same night she had taken the photo which Kate had initially asked about. As far as she knew, Roy hadn't stayed in contact with the man, rarely mentioned him.

The third man she only remembered as Gary. No last name, though Kate knew finding the name wouldn't be difficult. NYPD records would provide the lead that she needed, but Castle had the rest of the answers. She'd known it from the moment he'd deflected her in the interrogation room. For reason's she couldn't begin to decipher, Montgomery had reached out to him and shared the story he couldn't tell her.

It was that quest for the rest of the story had led her to the loft, to being surrounded by both her biggest regret and greatest comfort while her life disintegrates. She wants to crawl against Castle and never come out, she wants to hit him for hiding this from her for days. She does neither.

Tears come hot and fast as she reads the words for the fourth time, burning bright against her eyes while she tries to sink to the floor. Instead of dropping like the dead weight she feels that she is, Kate is lowered to the ground slowly. Castle's hands guide her, his solid weight surrounding her as her silent tears turn into a keening cry which still echoes in his office despite her attempt to stay quiet.

He's gentle with her, whispering apologies and other words into her ear, tucking her hair behind her ears and drawing her crumpled body against his own while Kate continues to sob. She's so far beyond being able to fight him, too far embedded in both the painful truth of Montgomery's role in it all and the grief of her mother's murder to do anything beyond let it out. It's a torrent of tears that she's never allowed herself since becoming a cop, too many years of driving and working for justice, too busy wearing layer after layer of armor that kept her untouchable to give in to weakness.

None of it seems to matter as she folds herself against the warmth of the writer at her back, she allows herself to be selfish in this. To take from a man who has caused her a fair deal of pain but, in every instance but one, provided nothing but support and friendship. She's sure that she doesn't deserve it, that he should have given her the information and slammed the door in her face, but Kate isn't so proud as to not take the olive branch that he's offered.

And Castle stays the whole time that she cries. He sits in the middle of his office with his arms around her, occasionally reassuring her that it will be okay until her tears have slowed and she's really only leaning against him because she's too afraid to face it all and ask the questions that the board can't tell her.

The silence isn't strained, merely exhaustive. It's an extension of the emotion that both of them are feeling, but especially Kate as her head lies heavy against his shoulder. Rick had pulled her into his lap somewhere along the way, and he's kept a firm hold on her waist. It's the stuff his dreams were once made of, of being allowed to hold Beckett and just enjoy it.

This is nothing like his dreams.

* * *

As the quiet stretches on, he finds himself considering if the hold this woman has on him is pathetic. It's quite possibly the worst time to entertain such thoughts but he can't shake the feeling that in all things related to Beckett it's now or never.

And he wants now. He wants to be the one to hold her when she cries, to be the person she turns to after a bad day, to be allowed to kiss her and make her laugh. It's a concept that he's denied himself for so long that Rick had thought the desire had left him, but that seems to have been a fools thought because Kate Beckett still has him entranced in all the ways that matter.

It's completely infuriating and more than a bit insulting, he's embarrassed by the notion and a little ashamed to want a woman who so carelessly threw his heart on the ground. Even worse, she toyed with his emotions for months and then moved on with another guy. So Rick had bowed out gracefully, taken the simple and familiar that Gina had presented him and retreated to the Hampton to lick his wounds and resolve to merely be her friend.

He had never expected to return and discover Kate had fled, for four years to pass where the most he got from her were the words he created for Nikki or the occasional scrap of news that Espo, Ryan or Lanie would feed to him.

It was easier not to want her, to allow the anger to consume him and burn away how pathetically in love with her he was. He had cut any pleasant memories of Kate out in order to cope, had ran from their connection as completely as she had. He'd learned to hate what she'd done to him and convinced himself that extended to the woman draped against his chest with tears still sliding down her cheeks.

"Beckett, come on," he says eventually, lightly shifting her body so that he can rise to his knees and then guide her onto her feet. They don't go far, instead he places her on the couch and keeps himself a respectable distance while resolving to keep his personal feelings and fears out of their current situation.

He's not sure Kate can handle it. She already looks as it she's broken into pieces as she sits slumped against his leather couch, as vulnerable as he's ever seen her.

* * *

_Set me free, leave me be,_

_I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity,_

_Here I am, and I stand, so tall,_

_Just the way I'm supposed to be,_

_But you're on to me, and all over me._

* * *

"Montgomery told me that it all began as a vigilante mission. A radical idea to keep control over their turf by scaring the crime bosses in the city and a way to make money on the side. They never hurt anyone, always returned them by the ransom deadline until Bob Armen came along," he speaks slowly, their only contact in the connection of their clasped hands. He still takes a page from her book, his thumb moving in those same tight circles over her hand that Kate had first used on him.

"Undercover FBI agent, trying to get a lead on the kidnappings. He intervened in one, a gun went off and the man was lying dead in that alley. It was an accident, and it was a turning point for Montgomery. He stopped hanging with Raglan, became the best cop he could be," Rick continues, watching Kate stiffen at the idea of Montgomery being a good cop.

"And Pulgatti was the target?" she asks him, eyes hard and that familiar armor that turns Kate into Beckett snapping into place as she sorts through facts and begins to think like a cop.

"He was, they had no idea Armen was on to them. Somehow he caught the trail, tried to stop it and so they framed Pulgatti for it all. Made it look like a random murder, a hit from the mob," he answers quickly, and a chunk of her amor slides off her face. He knows why, and his heart aches at the endless barrage of pain he seems to be providing her with tonight.

"My mom was working on his case, he wrote to her and insisted he was innocent. I remember my dad teasing her about her bleeding heart over Christmas break, but she told him that she believed the man. That it looked like he had been framed," she replies, a spark firing in her eyes at a solid lead to latch on to, 'I need to talk to him."

He had expected as much, and the words are no surprise to him even as Rick sighs. "Kate…." he breathes out, watching her eyes narrow and darken in his direction, "You can't, it's not your case."

"It's my mother, Castle," she snaps, already on edge with him, "I've been working her case since I became a cop, waiting for a lead like this. You didn't seriously expect me to just walk away…" Though she can tell he had hoped she would, that she would leave it to Espo and Ryan.

How incredibly naive.

"We don't know _anything_," he insists, gripped by the fear of this woman running head first into a war with nothing more than the clothes on her back, "I know details, dates, but there was never anything that points towards the person who is ultimately responsible. Your mother was killed because she was trying to help Pulgatti, but it was a professional hit. Even with ransom money, none of these three could have paid that much for Dick Coonan. Somehow this is so much bigger than kidnapping for ransom."

"There is _always_ something, Castle. Someone has screwed up, left a trail for me to follow," she's up and moving then, long fingers skimming over her face to scrub away the tear tracks, reaching for the coat that she had discarded once they'd entered the office. Kate is halfway to his front door before he can catch her, grab her hand to pull her to a stop.

"Kate," he can count on one hand the number of times he's used her given name, and it's use now combined with the pleading note of his voice stops her. Her hair flows out behind her as she turns, levels him with a look that would once have him stepping away.

He just grips her hand tighter.

"Don't do this. Whoever is involved just put a bullet into Montgomery, they wrecked his house. Don't risk your life for this, I know you want to get this guy. I want him too but….this could be your life. Please let someone help, even if it isn't me - ask the boys, call in favors in D.C. just don't do this alone," he begs, so passed caring that how much he's still invested on her is probably written all over his face. Rick knows her, he knows that this is his last chance to stop her from taking a head dive off the cliff.

She regards him with sad eyes, drinks in every single facet of his appearance. His black sweater stretches tight over his biceps, the hang of his jeans on his hips, how his hair flops over his forehead, the bright blue of his eyes piercing into her. Kate wishes it was enough, wants it to be enough, but she's too scared to let it be enough.

This has been her crusade since the day she turned in her police cadet application, the driving force of her life that has driven friends away, ended relationships, kept her at arms length from everyone. There had been a time where she would have stopped, would have given in to his request. As it is, she doesn't know how to let go, to be more than the daughter who wants justice for her mother.

Giving it up, building a life without this shadow, it's far more terrifying than facing down a man with a gun.

"I can't," she says quietly, unable to release the words while looking at his eyes. Instead she whispers them to the floor and then steps forward. It's unfortunate that she has to look at him in order to kiss him because she can see how deeply those two words have cut. Castle looks to be hanging on by a thread. There's a desperation pulsing under his veins, curling through his hands as they bracket her waist, it's on his lips and tongue as she kisses him; taking the reigns and going first for what she is sure is the last time she'll ever touch him in this way. He's pouring himself into it, telling her without words that he doesn't want her to go, that she can stay with him and be safe. That someone else can fight the battle so she can win the war.

"I'm so sorry," Kate whispers against his mouth, curving her hand against his cheek. She can feel the tears building behind her own eyes, can see the shine of them in Castle's as she gives the barest brush of her lips against his, "Bye, Castle."

She doesn't stick around to hear if he returns the sentiment. Her last glimpse of him is a man standing broken in his living room with tears sliding down his cheeks as she chooses death over life.

* * *

_I live here on my knees,_

_As I try to make you see that you're,_

_Everything I think I need here on the ground,_

_But you're neither friend or foe,_

_Though I can't seem to let you go,_

_The one thing that I still know_

_Is you're keeping me down._

* * *

Rick doesn't know how long he stands there. His eyes remain on the door while he hopes that Kate will come to her sense and walk back inside, that she won't disregard her person safety to chase ghosts.

He also knows that its a hopeless wish, that he has enabled her addiction into this case just as much as handing an alcoholic a bottle. He hates himself for it, for caving to her so easily, but he also hates her.

It's not the slow-burning and all consuming thing that he had convinced himself of in their time apart, this is sharp and hard. Quick flares of anger that are backed with the disappointment of knowing that Kate Beckett would never choose him, or anyone else. She will forever pick herself, keep pushing people away when they get to close. She's selfish and inconsiderate, and will always run away.

He has the urge to throw something, settles for slamming his hands against the back of his office door. It doesn't help that much about making him feel better, but it does release some of the emotions he is trying to control. Eventually he moves over to pull the jump drive from the board, sighing in relief as the screen fades to black. It's as much closure as he thinks he is going to get but Rick still pulls an envelope from his desk and scrawls her name on the top.

The note he intends to write blossoms into a letter. Three pages of his feelings and his fear, how much he wanted her in his life, how he knew she would run again and how he has to let her go. That he will somehow make peace will the anger over her leaving for D.C., accept that he will never be enough for her. This time, goodbye is permanent.

He tucks the jump drive inside the pages and seals the envelope, placing it into a coat pocket for safekeeping until the morning.

* * *

_Song: 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles from 'Little Voice'_


	10. Chapter 10 (Responsible)

_A/N: Long time, no update! This is the time of year where I'm crazy busy, and last week included about 47 hours of work so, on the rare occasion I was home, I either caught up on sleep or did practical things like laundry. However, I sat down today and plotted out the remaining chapters of the story. Provided everything stays on schedule there will be 18 chapters and potentially an epilogue. _

_Thanks for all the reviews/favs/follows! Keep them coming. And a shoutout to whoever put this story on twitter. Someone mentioned they were led here via that tweet, and that's pretty cool!_

* * *

_Bound for the blessing, _

_You wouldn't see it coming,_

_I keep you guessing,  
Watch while you come undone._

* * *

One lone lamp burns through the shadows that linger on the homicide floor, aided by the glow of the smartboard in the conference room. Kate works steadily through the night, pausing only to replenish the coffee that is keeping her from laying among the paperwork and sleeping.

She had briefly tried to sleep, going back to her hotel to spend an hour staring at the ceiling as tears slid freely from her eyes to wet the pillowcase under her. She knew she was crying as much for herself as for her mother, the sight of Castle's broken expression as she closed his front door haunting her mind as much as the image of her mother's body crumpled in that Washington Heights Alley.

Instinctively, Kate knew she'd somehow made the wrong choice. She'd tamped it down as soon as it flitted through her mind and rolled out of bed, putting her body to action in order to quiet the part of her mind and her heart that she wasn't ready to confront.

"Whoa, what happened in here?" she cringes a bit at the nasal notes presented at her back by Sully, who stands inside the conference room door gaping at the lopsided piles of paperwork she had scoured from the records room. Wordlessly, Kate points towards the smartboard which now holds a list of cases with altered records that both Raglan and his partner, Gary McCallister, worked on.

She assumes Montgomery altered them to hide his connection to the men, though short of asking the man she can't know for sure.

"Someone's been altering police records?" Sully asks, following his words with a low whistle through his teeth. Still, she turns in her chair to face the rookie, cutting off his next sentence with a cold stare.

"Sully, not a word to anyone. This is an ongoing part of an investigation and even sharing with a cop you trust could take a bad turn," she replies, waiting until he nods and moves further into the room as Esposito and Ryan join them.

Kate is selective in how she recounts the information given to her by Castle and Evelyn, the lump of emotion in her throat growing with each new look of shock and horror that passes between the three men. None of them want to believe it, and she understands the concept, but the evidence is undeniable. However much good Captain Montgomery has done since that day, he was once one of the very people that they all despise in their profession.

Still, she sees the glimmer of understanding that Sully had lacked before and she finally relaxes in knowing the Detective will keep the secret though she can't imagine any of them are naive enough to think Montgomery will escape unpunished for his actions.

"DMV addresses for Raglan and McCallister put them both in the area. Raglan lives on the Upper West Side, McCallister has moved to Long Island," she explains, Ryan immediately up from his seat and gesturing to Sully.

"We will go get McCallister, send unis for Raglan," he says, halted by Esposito's hand on his partners arm.

"Bro, wait," he begins, meeting each of their eyes in turn, "If there were three cops in on this, there could be others still on the force who were around or know about it. You can't be sure who to trust. Sully and Karpowski can get Raglan, we'll take McAlister. Beckett? You need to pick up Castle."

The now cold cup of coffee tips over as Kate's hands slip at the mention of Castle, sending all three of them in a scramble to save papers and electronic equipment while Ryan finds a roll of paper towels. In the resulting commotion, she has time to school herself so that she doesn't choke on her question or give anything away.

She can't face questions about Castle. Now right now, not after she walked away from him. But refusing to cooperate is just as much of a red flag, even if she can already see the wheels spinning behind Esposito's eyes as they wipe down the table and place everything back on top.

"He's with a rotating shift of unis, some that we don't know. He's a witness to a shooting that we know now is something much deeper and far more dangerous - you want to bet his life on the notion that only three people were ever aware of this kidnapping scheme?" he asks, keeping his voice low.

And he's right, the pieces don't add up. Even with ransom money, Raglan or McCallister's financial records don't have the makings of hiring a professional to kill someone that seems to have gone to great lengths to protect their association with one another. The shooter also remains at large, a literal phantom who could just be hiding his time until he can reach one, or all, of the remaining people connected to the case.

It's a moment of startling clarity when Kate realizes that in sharing the information she's just put Espo, Ryan and Sully in the crosshairs though it'd be Castle who would likely take the first bullet.

"Be discreet," she tells all three of them, pulling her coat from the back of the chair to follow them all out of the conference room.

* * *

Sleep had been an elusive figure. He'd made the effort to crawl into bed, had tossed and turned for a couple of hours and then finally give up. Too tormented, too worried to sleep. Was he going to turn on the news to hear that a Federal Agent had been killed walking down the street? See her photo underneath some awful headline in the morning paper?

Rick didn't know, not in the sense of when, or how. But he knew in his gut that this would kill her. Whoever was responsible had already put a bullet into a police captain, murdered two people execution style. The regard for life wasn't very high, protecting the one piece of the puzzle they didn't have seemed to be the priority.

Montgomery had said the cases were connected to the kidnappings. He'd just remained stumped as to how.

And then there was Kate. He'd poured so much of himself out into the letter in his coat pocket that he felt drained. Writing it all down had been cleansing in a way, unleashing the well of feelings that she could stir up in him with just the quirk of an eyebrow. He'd always shied away from the idea that he loved her, especially when faced with how she had walked away. But the words had been lodged in his mind as he'd written to her, though he hadn't allowed himself to put them onto the page.

He was willing to give a lot when it came to Kate Beckett, but admitting he loved her wasn't one of them. Not when she'd chosen to carry on without him. She had taught him about using evidence to make sense of the story and all the evidence told him that Kate cared, just not enough to risk it.

The day called for sitting in his pajamas, to allow himself a few hours of being miserable before he delivered the letter and got on with his life. He would finish the book, promote the book, and find something new. Maybe he wouldn't even write crime novels anymore. Maybe it was time for a new genre.

The knock on the door is unexpected, and he hesitates for a moment. Considers pretending that no one is home before he remembers that there are officers stationed outside that give him away.

The flood of surprise at a green coat clad Kate Beckett rivals that of hours before when she'd stood there in a black one that had highlighted her pale skin. "How many coats do you even have?" he blurts before he can stop himself, the seductive rise of her eyebrow his reward.

"Enough," she responds. The words are hesitant and he's sure she is remembering how they had left things the night before. Does it bother her as much as it's eating him? Rick doesn't have the courage to ask as he backs the door open further and makes room for her to enter.

It's once she's inside and the door has swung closed that he remembers he is in a t-shirt and pajama pants. That his hair is likely sticking straight up in a dozen different angles and he probably has pillow creases on his face. Before he can mumble excuses for being in his sleep clothes at 10:30 in the morning, she's talking over him saying words like precinct and joining us and it's all too much for him.

"I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" he finally asks, watching the question stop her short and regard him with a thin layer of annoyance. Ah, there's the Beckett hiding underneath the Kate.

"Espo doesn't think you are safe with a rotating detail of officers that we haven't vetted ourselves. Since you are a witness in Montgomery's shooting and we know there are other officers involved, we think it's best if you come to the precinct and stay with us," she explains, the request to also help work the case going unspoken though he doesn't miss the implication. He has to fight a smile and the thrill of the idea, temporarily forgets that he's still hurt and pissed off at her. That she doesn't love him.

"Let me just get dressed," he says, "Make yourself comfortable. Mother is in Chicago, Alexis is at school."

* * *

_I can't change you,_

_When you won't change yourself, _

_See you slowly becoming someone else, _

_I can't blame you for the strength you lack,_

_Scared to give me what you may not get back._

* * *

Kate lasts about five minutes before she has to move. It's all a little too much with her memories of the night before shoved up against all the other times she's visited.

There are subtle changes in the loft. The furniture has been rearranged, a sofa that looks similar to the one she remembers but is leather rather than textile, some new artwork on the walls, different books on the shelves that face into the living area.

The doll that had usually had a home in the right armchair is gone, replaced with a square throw pillow in muted red and tan that is as contemporary as everything else in the room. It's all sleek lines and earth tones, the work of someone who is rich enough to buy comfort and carries enough taste to not be outlandish with money.

She retraces the path that she took on her only overnight stay. Her fingers walk across the spines of art and criminal psychology books, brush against a large leather bound volume of Edgar Allan Poe that makes her grin. One of the names Castle had chosen for himself, a prolific writer with an eccentric personality that bordered on insanity.

It fits and then it doesn't.

She's caught staring at the life size polar bear print that holds residence behind the grand piano, and then absorbing a photo of Castle and Alexis on the way to the playground. There's another of Alexis dressed head to toe in white, looking costumed in some sort of flapper-esque dress that swallows her small body completely. A third photo shows a younger Martha and a much younger Richard Castle, his arms artfully draped around his mother's shoulders as they smile for the camera.

He looks to be in his mid-to-late twenties. Old enough to have Alexis, to be between marriages. She can't be sure though, and it eats away at her because she wants to know. She wants to look at photographs and to be able to tell how old he is and what was happening in his life but that is the sort of knowledge afforded to a girlfriend, to a lover, to someone in a relationship that is serious and going places.

And Kate isn't ready for that, she's not. She's still so scared of him, of how easily he slips pasts her defenses and makes her this weak and needy thing. She doesn't want to need him, or to miss him, or to feel anything at all. There are no guarantees in love, or in life, and for all her iron strength and hard edges, there's a fragility to her heart. Castle gained more pieces of it in their time together than she ever gave to anyone.

She doesn't even remember willingly parting with them, just that she looked up one day at Tom Demming and realized he would never measure up. That he was a pale imitation of the man that she wanted and, a couple of days later, that she'd missed her chance with. So she'd gone on the defensive, turning her humiliation and hurt into anger, running from a broken heart and rebuilding her life around a job that she was good at but which held no real passion for her.

The task force was safer than New York. She was safer outside of Manhattan. And so she'd let the years go by, ignored the advances until they had stopped coming, pushed Castle from her life until he was nothing more than memories in her mind and words on a page.

She regrets that, now. But Kate knows she won't change it, if this was her second chance, a shot at redemption then its already passed her by. How could he still care about her after putting so many things above him?

Kate knows its for the best as she leans against the kitchen counter, having made a full lap of the main floor. Castle deserves someone who isn't broken, and that person isn't her.

When he strolls back through his office door, she realizes it's been fifteen minutes. Far faster that she'd have ever pegged him to be able to get out the door considering the concern for all things appearance related. Still, he makes no move towards the exit instead moving to the kitchen with a one word offer of coffee that makes her stiffen and close her eyes against the well of emotion.

She misses the shadow of regret that passes over Rick's face, how he takes a measured step away from the counter and puts his back to the fancy french press that he uses every morning. Coffee means things are good, that they are on the same page, are partners in all things.

He can't make her coffee, not now. And they both know it.

The silence stretches between them for several more moments until Kate opens her eyes, meets his sky blue ones with a sad smile. "I think that time is over, Castle."

He only nods and moves to get his coat.

* * *

He watches silently from the observation room as Beckett all but limps out of the box. She radiates exhaustion, with the emotional and mental toll of two back to back interrogations bleeding into what he suspects is a living nightmare.

He had tried. Kevin had tried. Even Castle had used what little influence he still had over Beckett to attempt to talk her out of interrogating Raglan and McCallister. She was too close to the case, too emotional, too worked up over the possibility of getting answers that she might tip over the edge if they provided none.

None of it had worked, she'd shut them all out. Had brought Sully into the box with her to act as a NYPD liaison and spent the following six hours sweating the two retired cops in turn. It was the Beckett he remembered, a tiger luring her prey and waiting for the moment to pounce, weaving a story that was every bit as good as what Castle put on a page in order to ensnare the suspect and bring them to their knees.

She had been successful, not that it'd ever been in doubt. Ryan now had two sets of paperwork to fill while Sully and an officer took both men into processing as accessories to murder. Another domino knocked down, another piece of a puzzle, but as he watches Beckett slump into a chair and bury her head in her hands Javier has to consider if its worth the cost.

She's fraying at the seams, and everyone can see it but Kate.

* * *

"Agent Beckett, what portion of my instructions were difficult to understand?" McCord's voice is like a hot poker, branding her body when it's already been beaten and bruised by the emotional onslaught. She'd always thought that getting some sort of justice for her mother would lift her up, keep her spirits high, but these men are only cogs in a much larger wheel.

Kate feels as if she's just sliced off one head and seen two more grow in its place.

'_You woke the dragon'. _That's what McCallister had told her and she hadn't imagined the chill that had curled over her spine or the fear that had gripped her heart.

"We have reason to believe that this case and those of the Vickers and Matthews murders are connected," she inserts herself back into her conversation when McCord pauses for a breath, listens as the woman scoffs on the other end.

"And where is the evidence of that?" her boss asks, "From where I'm sitting. it seems that something tragic happened to a man who mentored you in your early days with the NYPD and you've been forgoing the investigation that we have sent you to do in order to use federal resources to investigate the murder of your mother."

"I'm sympathetic to what happened, and I imagine it's difficult for you to work under such circumstances but the only thing that is saving your position on this Task Force is that you've handed the FBI confessions to the murder of Bob Armen. So either you get back to your job, the two cases you were sent to investigate, or I come up there and strip you of your badge and your service weapon. It's your choice, Beckett."

The sound of Rachel McCord's office phone slamming into its cradle and the resulting dial tone are how she gathers the conversation has ended, which is enough reason for Kate to release a choice handful of four letter words. She's aware that other people can hear her, that the door has opened and closed during her tirade, but she doesn't focus on any of it. Even that small release of words has helped, pushed some of the building tension out of her body.

She still needs to hit something. Or shoot something. Or both.

"Raglan gave us a list of kidnappings after you finished with him, we are going to run records see if anything pops though I can't imagine the mafia involved anyone. He also told Ryan that the ransom was paid into different accounts. He recalled his number, but didn't know the others, McCallister wasn't as forthcoming as you'd imagine with his mafia connections," Espo says as he places the coffee cup in front of her, "And we all think you need to go home, get some sleep." He stops short of asking when the last time she managed to get any was.

Kate regards the coffee warily, eventually lifting it to her mouth for a sip. She doesn't need it, she's wired almost to the point that her hands are shaking, but the smell and the flavor are comforting. "I can't, McCord wants a solid connection between these kidnappings and the two murders. Castle says Montgomery insisted they were connected but we've got nothing to point us to that but his word."

He looks ready to question her further, and she's sure its a line of them that she doesn't want to answer. It's strained at best between her and the writer, though lacking the sparking heat of their first interactions. She suspects they look like two people who have just been through a breakup, and Espo wants to know when they got together in the first place.

She just doesn't have the energy to answer, especially knowing that whatever she says will go directly to Lanie. And while Kate loves Lanie, the girl isn't known for her tact or ability to resist pushing where her personal life is concerned.

"I'll get Castle, Ryan and Sully, we'll hit it all from the top over dinner. Have you even eaten today?"

Her responding head shake of no gets a groan and a good dose of side eye as Espo leaves the room, hollering across the bullpen for Castle to order the entire Remy's menu and an extra large strawberry shake.

* * *

Wet, fat snowflakes drift by the windows as they all watch Kate scribble on the murder board. She'd given up on the FBI's fancy smartboard about an hour before, needing to curb her energy by writing and pacing instead of typing on a keyboard.

It's all listed in her neat hand, two taped lines splitting the two white boards they had pushed together with details from both murders, her mother's case and Bob Armen. There is no connection present, nothing to hint at some of Montgomery's final words to Castle.

That hasn't stopped the writer. His theories fly wild and fast, spinning through the room and invoking a multitude of reactions from an audience who has now become more catatonic than attentive.

"We've already agreed that none of them have the money to hire a professional hit. You've seen Raglan and McCallister's financials, there's nothing out of the ordinary, no large withdrawals or deposits. So there's someone else, someone with money and power and a reason to want all three dead. The only thing that fits is that Rylee and Jonathan found out something about these kidnappings, is Pulgatti still writing letters to lawyers to get them to help him?" he asks with a look at Kate.

"Pulgatti died two weeks ago, heart attack in his cell. Autopsy showed no foul play, no poison or drug overdoses," she responds, rubbing at the space between her eyebrows, "But the warden said he largely kept to himself, had for years. No visitors beyond his daughter, no letters or phone calls that weren't from her - they are still sending them to us but she's a stay at home mother of four in Pennsylvania."

"Then what is it…." Castle murmurs as much to himself as for the ears of the others. He's scanning the neat stacks of information, cataloging it all into his mind when he shoots up from the table, pointing wildly, "Bracken!"

"What?" Ryan nearly chokes on the fry he's eating, his eyes wide at the accusation.

"Rylee's sister told you during the interview that she thought they were having an affair, but what if that wasn't it? What if she was leading them along after discovering that he was up to something. Think about it, he's got money and power, more than enough to pay for a professional hit."

Kate remains quiet, emotionally invested enough to almost believe the far fetched theory he is spouting for them. But she can count on Esposito who gives an eye roll that is worthy of her own and cuts him off with a simple, "Cool it, bro."

"We briefly focused on the Senator last week, even Beckett ran his records. He comes up clean, no spending that would indicate a mistress. Any hotel stays or dinners come from his campaign funds and donations, not his personal accounts. Those are used for car payments, mortgages, tuition for his children to attend private schools. We were going to talk to him on Friday when he came into town, but since nothing popped we filed it as a dead end," Ryan explains as Castle deflates a bit with his theory now defunct.

She sits across from him, spinning a pen through her fingers while considering their options, "Maybe its Vickers, he worked at the UN. Maybe some of these kidnapped mafia members have ties there and it all came out, one ordered a hit. We've been focusing on Matthews because she was killed first, though found second, but maybe that was a crime of opportunity. The guy went after the first one he could get, even if it was as a warning to Vickers."

"I'll get Hendricks on working UN contacts again, run that list we were given to see if anyone pops in connection. Soon as someone does, we move. I think we are all aware of how time sensitive this is - the longer we take, the harder it will be to contain," she rattles off, pushing her chair away from the table to drain the last of her strawberry shake when Esposito's phone rings.

It's all of fifteen seconds after he's answered when his expression blanches. They all watch how his jaw tightens, how something sad edges in his eyes, "We'll be right there. Thank you," he says, hanging up with a long sigh, "That was Officer Velasquez. Captain Montgomery died five minutes ago, blood clot cut off air to his lungs."

* * *

_Song: 'Responsible' by Sara Bareilles from 'Careful Confessions'._


	11. Chapter 11 (Bittersweet)

_A/N: You know how sometimes you've got this epic scene planned? And then you write it and it takes a completely different turn. That's what happened in this chapter. Explosive turned emotive. _

_Slight disclaimer that while the words of this song are beautiful and haunting, the musical arrangement is awful. _

* * *

They sit in a knot of five people, each cradling a cup of coffee and largely pushing food around their plates versus actually eating. None of them have much of an appetite with knowing the couple of days that lie ahead.

Their early morning breakfast meeting had come at Kate's request, her attempt to gather the troops and do damage control. She'd wrestled with the decision for most of the night, an internal war of her grief over Montgomery's death and his role in her mother's keeping her awake until the exhaustion had finally won.

Now they all sat on various surfaces in her hotel room, pushing around the food she had ordered while the silence hangs heavy.

"I've been thinking that we should agree to keep Montgomery's role in all of this between us," she says, seeing the surprise flicker on all the four faces staring back at her, "There's nothing to be gained from dragging his name through the mud beyond putting Evelyn and his daughters through more grief and they don't deserve that. So it stays between us unless a time comes where we can no longer deny it. There's no record to tie him to Raglan or McCallister."

"I can't see anyone willingly playing that card, their knowledge of the three would also implicate them as either an accomplice or pay off," Castle adds from the corner.

Ten minutes later, her room empties of all but herself and Castle who breaches the distance to press an envelope into her hands marked with her first name in his floating cursive.

"Don't read it now, we've got work to do. But this is for you," he says and watches Kate drop the paper into her coat pocket with a tiny nod.

* * *

Eight inches of snow blanket the city, making a morning commute from her hotel to the precinct a nightmare on slushy streets as more snow pounds the metro area. It's also promising to be a difficult day for interviews as several of them are sure to be postponed.

Kate is surprised that when she escorts Castle up to the homicide floor that the place is full. Her first three interviews are waiting, while Hendricks is already approaching with a rundown on UN contacts that he thinks they need to discuss in relation to Jonathan Vickers.

There's also another murder, some NYU professor pushed off a building which Karpowski pulls Sully on by hauling the rookie from his desk by the collar of his shirt while Esposito and Ryan laugh.

She goes with her gut, putting Hendricks and Argent on the UN contacts and gesturing that Castle joins her in the interview. The beaming smile that breaks over his face doesn't go unnoticed as she shrugs off her coat and picks up her leather folder.

"We just had a few more questions about Rylee and Jonathan, specifically if anything odd had happened to them. If either of them had mentioned problems at work, even minor things. I know that you mentioned in an early interview that nothing seemed off, but we find sometimes that a minor disturbance can prove useful in an investigation," Kate recites it all carefully, pen poised over her paper as Rylee Matthew's sister Rebecca draws her eyebrows in concentration.

"I...no…" she sighs, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her eat, "It was the usual, we talked about plans for Christmas, she kept putting off making plans for her birthday next month. She thought the guy she was dating would want to take her someplace, she didn't want to leave town. She was always busy, going on dates, meeting friends for drinks. I just don't understand why anyone wanted to hurt her."

"You mentioned that you thought she had been dating her boss, Senator Bracken…" Castle prompts.

Rebecca begins speaking before he can finish the question, "Which was Rylee trying to protect me," she gives a sad laugh, "Really, I'm the oldest. That's my job. But I'd always held it against Jonathan for breaking up with her when she left for D.C. He had always held that against her, how she'd chosen advancing her career over keeping their relationship afloat. Once she got there it was all work, all the time, he felt left out and kept pressuring her, they started fighting and it just…." her words trail off with a vague gesture, "When she met up with him after moving back I kept cautioning her, reminding her how much he'd hurt her during their fights. He'd been so callous when he'd broken up with her and I think she just assumed I didn't want to know and downplayed it as some big secret."

"I really regret that now," she adds after a beat, "I hate knowing she lied because she thought I was against her life decisions."

He chances a look over at Beckett when its clear that Rebecca needs a moment to gather herself, cradling the box of tissues that sit on the table beside her. It's a story that he knows resonates with her yet he is still surprised to see the threat of tears in her eyes, how she holds her body stiffly, the way her hands clench and unclench against the pen she's holding. For a brief second, their eyes meet and it's clear that she shares the regret of the woman in front of her.

Rick just knows better than to trust that Kate would make a different choice if she could do it all again.

"It seems that a lot of your conversations revolved around her social life, but everyone else we've talked too have indicated that Rylee enjoyed her job, put in a lot of hours with Bracken's campaign," Kate breaches softly once the woman seems to have regained her composure.

"She...she didn't talk about it much, not for weeks. I just always assumed there was nothing to say, with the holidays the demands for speeches had slowed a bit and it was mostly organization and contacting donors to make a run up towards any announcement," she responds with a shrug, "I never thought anything of it."

It's three hours and four interviews later when they stroll out of the conference room, body language practically screaming of a new lead as Beckett turns her body towards Castle as they talk in the hallway. Both of them are oblivious to the pair of uniforms who have to make awkward stops and shuffle past them to avoid a collision. As usual, they only have eyes for one another.

"You think they even notice how close they are standing?" Esposito asks his partner as he lifts a cup of coffee to his lips.

"Nope. You think they'd just make out and get it over with," Ryan supplies before taking his own sip of the stuff, snorting softly as Beckett steps forward with a half smile and suddenly steps back as if she's been burned. The action siphons off the hum of energy that had surrounded both of them, leaving the pair looking a little lost as they remain awkwardly in place.

"Showtime, bro," Espo murmurs, stepping forward in time with Ryan to approach with a 'Yo'.

"We've pulled everything available on the kidnapping list, which isn't much. A few were reported in the papers, but everything was largely off the books both in the media and the department. The cops didn't report it, the media didn't know about it, and Raglan says the ransom was paid in cash which they divided and deposited into accounts."

"So, nothing," Kate says to Espo, flint in her eyes at being presented with another dead end.

"We, however, have something," Castle adds, forcing cheer into his voice that he finds hard to feel after the surge of connection with Beckett and the devastating realization that he will never have her when she pulled away, "Rylee's sister Rebecca told us that she stopped talking about work sometime before the holidays. Jonathan's roommate and a coworker both confirmed that he returned from a party with Rylee at Senator Bracken's home and seemed on edge. They both assumed he'd had a fight with her, but they never broke up. After a couple of weeks he seemed to go back to normal and neither of them gave it any thought."

"Castle thinks that something happened at the party, that maybe they overheard an international spy conspiracy or nuclear weapon codes and were subsequently killed for the knowledge," she adds with a roll of her eyes, smiling softly at the gasp of outrage the writer supplies as he turns to the boys for defense.

Neither of them move to help, which is just as he expected.

"Actually," Rick begins, cutting his eyes over at Beckett, "I said that maybe they heard something in connection with the kidnappings. Someone let a name slip or talked about one of them. Enough to shake them up, to scare them. The person responsible found out somehow, and ordered a hit."

It's obvious there is more to the thought that involves Montgomery, though it goes unspoken.

"I'll get on the phone and find a guest list for that party, schedule some interviews and see if anything shakes out. If someone saw something we might get lucky, or at least be able to confirm if anything odd happened," Kate tells all of them as she pulls her phone up to her ear, "But we still need a solid connection, McCord wants something by 10 p.m. tomorrow. Keep working that angle will you?"

* * *

_I call you misplaced but never a waste of my time,_

_Everybody's gonna make mistakes,_

_But you'll never be one of mine._

_You loved me fearless when you needed to,_

_You would not rest till you came through, _

_So God bless and thank you…_

* * *

The black dress stands in contrast to the white door of the hotel closet. She'd purchased two of them that afternoon on her way from the precinct, having realized that none of the clothing she'd packed would be appropriate.

It wasn't as if she'd planned on attending a wake and a funeral during her excursion into Manhattan but here she was, perched on the edge of her bed at 4:30 in the afternoon while staring down a dress that she would wear to honor a man whom she was still working on forgiving.

Kate knows that will come in time, that the passage of it heals all things in some small way though never completely. The raw edge of grief over her mother still sucks her breath, can still slice her open in ways she can never predict, and it suddenly feels as if its been minutes rather than fifteen years.

But forgiveness feels right, for more than just Montgomery.

It's that thought that reminds her of the letter, the one that has her digging into her pocket for the envelope and tipping its contents onto the mattress. She recognizes the jump drive, clutches it in the palm of her hand for a brief moment until she can't take the onslaught of memories and instead turns her attention to the sloping lines of Castle's handwriting.

* * *

She's still on edge from his words, scanning the crowd of people that fill the maze of rooms for any sign of Castle. The pressing need to see him is one built from anger, a slow burn of indignation at the audacity of the man attempting to shame her for seeking justice for her mother instead of allowing others to fight the battle in her stead. It makes her furious, and that's without the knowledge that he is certain she will die on the quest and the complete dismissal of her abilities in the field to protect herself.

Time or place be damned, he had no right to tell her that and imply in the same breath that he still cared about her..

Ryan materializes at her shoulder while she's watching the front entrance, a beaming smile on his face that is completely out of place at a wake full of somber people speaking in hushed voices. It's the petite blond standing next to him that is the source of his happiness, and Kate's full attention zeros in on Kevin and his wife with an enthusiasm that she is surprised she can still feel next to her anger with Castle.

"It's so nice to finally meet you, Kate!" Jenny is sweet, a Kindergarten teacher at a prep school on the Upper East Side though understandably on maternity leave until after spring break.

"Likewise. I've heard so much about you and Sarah Grace from Kevin, and I'm so sorry that we haven't had time to meet yet. This case has kept us all so busy," she explains, lightly touching the woman's shoulder to leave no room for Jenny to doubt her sincerity. "But soon, I want to meet the baby. Maybe we can all find time to have dinner…."

Jenny Ryan latches onto the idea with relish, quickly turning to spot Lanie in the crowd and gesture for her to join them. There is a full plan forming before Kate has caught up to what she's agreed too, the blonde woman tossing out menu items and asking Esposito if he'd be willing to bring the wine for everyone who can drink.

"If he won't, I will," Castle's voice curls around her shoulders like a vice, stealing the breath from her lungs as Kate stiffens her spine and draws herself to her full height. She's pleased that her heels bring her within a couple of inches of him and that he quickly notes the icy aura she's directing towards him when his eyes flicker over her. The wariness he regards her with seems to permeate the rest of the group, all of whom retreat after Jenny's promise to finalize everything by the end of the night.

She can see the question in Lanie's eyes, how the woman attempts to station herself a couple of people away as Castle approaches. He's already resigned himself to enduring whatever she will thrown at him by the easy curve of his shoulders, the clear blue of his eyes that simply encourage her to go ahead and get it over with, quietly daring her to unleash it on him in a room full of people there to pay their respects.

It confirms every selfish thing he'd written in the letter, Rick thinks as he watches Kate cross her arms and work up the courage. If she's really going to start this in a room full of grieving cops and the Montgomery's then even his fond memories will evaporate, but he still waits. For once, he will not be the first one to move.

The reward for his patience is quick, Beckett's slim hand closing over his wrist and jerking him towards the end of the hall. He imagines that she has no more an idea of the layout than he does but Rick doesn't resist or react to the questioning glances from Lanie and Esposito as they pass them. He keeps his eyes firmly ahead, follows her into the last room on the right, one which holds extra chairs and is, thankfully, empty of people.

She drops his hand like it is burning her once the door has closed, pressing her body against the wood to ground herself in something. Kate is shaking with anger, sucking deep breaths through her nose as she regards him with a wounded expression hidden in the green of her eyes. Hidden because she's scared of showing her true colors, though that's always the way with Beckett.

Always so close to the vest. Always so scared to leap.

* * *

_You couldn't help it if you needed more than I could give,_

_That's just the way it goes,_

_The only love worth fighting for is one that you can win,_

_And that's just the way it goes._

* * *

"How dare you, Castle," she whispers, and he still catches the anger vibrating through her words despite their quiet delivery, "How dare you try and make me feel guilty for going after the man who killed my mother!"

"That isn't what I did," Rick argues back, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his blazer, "I told you that you made the wrong choice. I never said it wasn't yours to make."

"The HELL you didn't," Kate snaps, her eyes burning bright green as she launches herself away from the door to press two fingers into his chest that he is sure will leave a bruise, "_'I watched you walk away again, watched you choose to cover yourself in death rather than in life. You don't know how to exist without your mother's case, and what's worse is that you don't want too._'"

It's a rough paraphrase of his words, but she feels that they make her case, "You don't get to decide what I do with my life, Castle. Especially where my mother's case is concerned, I was studying it long before you came along and I did just fine in the past four years without your opinions and running commentary at my side. You have _no_ right…."

"No right?" he scoffs, rolling his eyes with a groan, "I have no right to have an opinion on how a woman I care about is walking straight to her death, how she's barely holding herself together and digging a hole that she's never going to get out of? I have every right in the world, Beckett."

"Why? Because you wrote a few books about me? Because I let you work with us for a while? That was four years ago! Ancient history," Kate snarls, taking two steps away to gain some distance.

She doesn't expect him to laugh, and her hair flies around her head as she whirls around to glare at him. "You and I both know it didn't have a damn thing to do with the books. It stopped being about the books around the fifth or sixth case. Don't use my writing as an excuse for your bad decisions."

"You aren't my boyfriend, Rick! You'd hardly even qualify as a friend…" she's off on a tirade of a different sort then, his allusion to the books and their work opening a floodgate of a different sort.

"Stop," he breathes, holding up a hand that cuts her words off as effectively as if he'd kissed her. The composure remains, but the detachment that he has been projecting has unraveled a bit, stiffened into something a little more ominous, "You don't get to use that, Beckett. You don't get to yell at me for our personal history, not when you've chosen everything in the world but me. Not when you run at every opportunity."

She balks at that, her mouth gaping open before she has the sense to snap it shut. And then she's growling at him, running her fingers through the ends of her curls while looking for the world as if she wants nothing than to slap him.

"You pushed me away." The words come out without her conscious permission, her heart taking a leap that her brain would never have allowed.

"I _pushed_….what in the hell are you talking about!" His exclamation is immediate, a bevy of confusion and a thousand questions written in his eyes as he stares at her. "YOU left, Beckett." Rick continues when its clear that she won't be answering his question, "You packed up your things, changed jobs, changed cities and I'm the one who pushed you away? Are you kidding me right now?" One hand makes a journey down his face as he sighs, presses his eyes closed in what he hopes is going to become a quickly answered prayer for strength because God help him, he just might strangle the infuriating creature in front of him. "You are the most…" he halts on the words he wants to say, lets them curl in his mouth and tastes the bitterness. He won't unleash them on her when she refuses to look at him, when she's hiding behind a curtain of hair as if it will shield her from all her problems.

"What difference will it make?" Kate finally speaks, the long caramel of her hair falling behind her shoulders as she lifts her head to his. "I read your letter, you've washed your hands of me, Castle. What difference does it make what I am? What you think of me?"

It's a desperate attempt at defense, an attempt to pick such a petty fight that he can't even give the question serious contemplation. He already knows the answer anyway. "To me? Not much. I think you've exhausted any good will that I can manage. At every turn you are making choices that are selfish and destined to self-destruct, proving that your first and usually only priority is yourself. Always protecting yourself, always expecting people to scale these impenetrable walls of yours or for everyone to be satisfied on the rare occasion you come down from your tower."

"You think this is easy?" Rick levels the question with every ounce of seriousness he possesses, meeting the hard steel of her eyes as she cloaks herself in her professional persona and begins to compartmentalize it all. He can see her mind turning, sifting and processing his words and filing them away in tiny little boxes so that they can't hurt her. Under normal circumstances he'd admire her ability to focus in the face of such emotional upheave, but as it is it just pisses him off.

So he advances, using his long legs to bridge the distance and his words to blow open the box she wants to put him in, "You think I enjoy watching someone that I love be so determined to throw her life away? You think I enjoy waking up every morning wondering if this will be the one where I get a call that says you've been shot? That some bastard put a bullet in your heart because you were too scared to allow someone to help you. Do you think I want to look at you and have to struggle to find the extraordinary woman who took my life my storm with her sassy attitude and bottomless compassion for the victims and their families? It's hell on earth, Kate. I go from minute to minute in a literal hell where I watch you shove parts of yourself into these boxes. And I think that I could help you, that if you'd just let me in that some of that joy and that spark I fell in love with will come back. And then you do it again - you shove away the things that scare you, hide in your job, in this case - you set yourself up for this inevitable fate that I just…." he sighs, pressing his eyes closed only to be assaulted with visions of her body broken and lifeless, "...I can't change your mind. I've accepted that, but I also don't have the strength to watch you do this."

It's a small triumph when he sees the slight tremble of her jaw, watches the bright green of her eyes fade into a muted shade. She isn't crying, but his words have penetrated her armor and given him the first glimpse of the woman who stole his breath and inspired his words.

"You are so _selfish_, Kate Beckett," he breathes, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear as she gives a sad sniffle, "So scared of letting anyone behind that suit of armor, locked up so tight that it would take a thousand keys to set you free. And I'd have hunted for every single one, untwisted every lock without a single complaint or regret." It's then that the first tear breaks the barrier of her eyelids and cuts a path towards her mouth and he has to fist his hands together to keep from reaching for her. Touching her would be a mistake.

"I never pushed you away," Rick continues quietly, "I bowed out. Maybe with far less grace that you deserved," he concedes around a sigh, weighing the merits of his guess at what sent her running in the first place with putting it out there and being wrong. It's not as if he has anything left to lose. "Gina was always a consolation prize, Kate. She was never my first choice but you had picked Demming and I….I just wanted you to be happy. That wasn't with me, so I made a choice."

"You hurt me," she whispers, choking on the words, "So I made a choice too."

"Yeah, I know," he agrees, "You made a choice to leave me out, you hid and broke my trust and my faith in you. Just like you did the other night at the loft and that isn't something I can give back, no matter how much I'd like too. I can't just forgive you, but I'm always going to care."

There's another quiet sniffle, a moment where Kate swipes desperately at the mascara stains on her cheeks and Rick folds on his promise not to touch her. He knows that this is it for him, for them, because there is no scenario where he can see her running willingly into his arms. There will be no more light touches or teasing glances, no more tentative kisses or coffee. It's the final chapter and the only reason that he draws his arms around her and presses his lips to the crown of her head, "Just remember that."

* * *

_Song: 'Bittersweet' by Sara Bareilles. (This song isn't available on any album, though you can listen to it on YouTube. Enjoy.)_


	12. Chapter 12 (Breathe Again)

_A/N: Oh wow! I never expected such a response from the last chapter. I'm so pleased all of you enjoyed it, and it was so great to read all of your reviews. Reading them is really one of the highlights of my day after I've put up a new chapter so definitely keep them coming. _

_This chapter could be called the turning point in the story. There are several short scenes in this that were needed for exposition, so I hope the choppiness doesn't distract you. I considered pushing some of the content to a later chapter but thought, in the end, that it was all stuff you needed to know before the 'main event'. _

* * *

_Open up, next to you,_

_And my secrets become your truth,_

_And the distance between,_

_That was sheltering me comes in full view._

_Hang my head, break my heart,_

_Built from all I have torn apart, _

_And my burden to bear is a love I can't carry, anymore._

* * *

Kate only sleeps from emotional exhaustion, a couple of hours where she's absolved from Castle's words and the heartbreaking look he'd given her after putting her into a cab. Even after he'd said his peace, after she'd begged him to let her leave, he'd still been on her side. He'd used his body as a buffer from the crowd, held off the questions from Lanie and the boys and taken her directly to the curb.

There had been another long embrace, Kate burying her head against the warmth of his chest while the cab had slid up to the curb. And he'd let her go with one last touch of his lips to her forehead.

She had cried the entire way to the hotel, her mind turning over his words with the painful realization that they'd all been true. Not in the sense that she didn't know, Kate was well aware of the lengths she had gone to protect herself and avoid risking her heart, it was the reason why relationships never worked but there had been some part of her, perhaps the very worst part, that had hoped Castle wouldn't care. That'd he stick around anyway.

It's just before 5 a.m. when she drags herself from bed, crawls into the shower with the speed of someone much older. Another round of tears start as she stands under the steam, tears full of regret that she can't be what he needs.

She's out the door in another hour, wrapped up against the snow that still falls. Almost a foot of the stuff has blown into the city in two days, halting rail service and trains into Grand Central and Penn Station. The weather has already played a hand in postponing Captain Montgomery's funeral, leaving relatives stranded and unable to travel.

Kate sighs, clutching the cup of strong black coffee in one hand as she hails a cab with the other to begin another day of work. A day where she doesn't expect Castle to show at the precinct.

* * *

By 10 a.m. she has confirmed her suspicion that Castle won't be showing, though it gives no relief to the sharp pain she feels. It also doesn't help that Lanie called her five times, that the medical examiner has filled her voicemail with messages, that Esposito and Ryan have seemed to taken up questioning her in turn about his absence and what happened at the wake, leaning heavily on her in the hope they'll get some morsel of information.

But she remains silent, ignoring questions about the night before and repeating variations that she doesn't know in regards to the writer not being at their sides with insane theories and coffee. Because she doesn't know and it's certainly not her place to call and ask, not anymore.

The package arrives with her breakfast, a small brown envelope that is addressed to her and contains only a small brass key and a notecard with three numbers '086'. The desk sergeant confirms it was dropped off the night before, though no one can provide a description of the deliverer. The key and the note both head into forensics for prints, but she isn't hopeful for the results and, truthfully, doesn't spend much time agonizing over them.

"Alison and David Thompson both confirm that our two victims were at the party. David works for Bracken in D.C. and he remembers seeing them disappear into a side room. At first he thought they wanted privacy to talk, Alison insists she thought they were slipping off to have sex, but they both were concerned because Bracken and Matthews former employer, Congresswoman Elizabeth Tyne, followed through the door a few minutes later," Kate reads the summary of her interview word for word, wanting to be sure that she leaves nothing out.

"David always expected there to be some sort of fallout, maybe for Rylee to be fired as she was invading the Senator's personal space but nothing ever came of it. In fact he doesn't think the Senator or Tyne even knew they were there. All four of them returned to the party after about half an hour. The victims both looked shaken, which he says he assumed is to a close call."

She drops the notebook with a sigh, gesturing for Ryan and Esposito to comment. She's answered with silence, and Kate cuts that off with a groan. "It's all just speculation. Maybe they heard something, maybe they were uncomfortable because they were caught and yelled at. It's all up for debate…."

"What about Vickers UN contacts? Your boy Hendricks find anything?" Espo asks.

"Couple of co-workers mentioned that he seemed on edge lately, one of them said it might have been around the time of this party but he couldn't be sure. The other didn't notice anything until a couple of weeks before his death. One of Rylee's co-workers told me on the phone that she had mentioned quitting her job, her sister mentioned that she hadn't talked about work for weeks."

"So something happened at that party," Ryan replies, "Want us to reach out to Bracken and Tyne, see what shakes out?"

"No, that's a job left for McCord. It's not a connection to my mom's case, but its a big enough lead to hold her off until we can find one," she says, reaching for the phone and pressing 1 on her speed dial.

* * *

The key fits easily into his palm, a brass one that looks as if it belongs to a locker. Maybe a bus or a train station, potentially a gym.

Rick wrinkles his nose at that, there are probably twenty thousand gym lockers in the metro area alone. If it belonged to a gym locker you'd almost never be able to find it. Maybe a safety deposit box? His own key is a bit bigger than this, but his box borders on thirty years old. It's possible they've gotten smaller in the corresponding years.

The notecard is of no help either, a plain white square with '722' written in blocky letters with black marker. Eduardo insists that the package was dropped off by a carrier, and his resulting phone conversation with both the company and the messenger say that the order was paid for a week ago in cash with today as the date of delivery. A literal dead end.

The two items and the envelope have both been sitting on the coffee table for the better part of an hour as he works up the nerve to either call the precinct or to brush the delivery off. That's a ridiculous notion because the timing is too good, the ends too neatly tied, and the message too infuriatingly vague for it to be related to anything but Johanna Beckett's murder.

He'd just feel better if he knew the message came from someone he could trust, that it wasn't a trap. But he still moves to the door, asks Reynolds to call the precinct and request for someone to pick up the letter. That he thinks it pertains to the case.

* * *

Michael Smith's body lies face down on the sidewalk, three bullet wounds oozing from his back as curious New Yorker's and tourists alike gawk behind the police tape. It's an MO so familiar now that Kate almost doesn't bother to look at the body. She knows the gun caliber will be the same, that the bullets will match the seven used to end the lives of Rylee Matthews, Jonathan Vickers and Roy Montgomery.

What she doesn't know is why. In all the research and all the work there had been no mention of a Michael Smith, a man who worked on the Upper East Side as a shadow lawyer for a prestigious firm, who owned homes in both Manhattan and Newport, Connecticut.

"Well, he was shot with a high range rifle. No one in the area reports hearing shots, so we know he used a silencer and judging from the angle of the entry I'm going to say he was perched up on the roof of that building," Esposito points across the street, where an eight story apartment building boasts a large banner that advertises units available beginning in July and a number to call for inquiry.

"I'll agree with all of that," Perlmutter echoes from his position on the ground, busy making prints of Smith's left hand as a crime scene tech hovers around and bags up the evidence scattered around from the open briefcase.

"I'll organize a canvas, if he used this building then he had to know Smith's schedule. Taking someone out in the middle of the street in is a planned hit, somehow this guy was a bigger threat than the others. He knew something, just like Montgomery," Kate says, gesturing for her team and a pair of officers to join her at the opposite side of the police tape for instructions.

It's a couple of hours before anything pops, before the bodega owner at the corner recalls a guy coming into the store multiple times over the past days immediately before Michael Smith. The man never bought anything, had only walked the aisles while Smith had purchased his usual cup of coffee and followed him out. Today had been the first day they hadn't shown.

Kate has never appreciated the efficiency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation more when, an hour later, a sketch of the suspected shooter has been issued to all major transportation hubs and law enforcement in the metro area.

They walk into the precinct just before noon, one of the officers pressing a folder into Kate's hands. She opens it on instinct, scanning the information before really knowing what she is reading - at least until she reaches the bottom.

Both the key and the notecard contained Michael Smith's prints. The envelope seal held DNA where he'd licked the adhesive. Whatever this key and those numbers had meant, their latest victim had been the one to send them to her and she doesn't imagine the chill that creeps up her spine.

The feeling only grows as she continues through the file, her stomach dropping somewhere near her knees at a second pair of forensics tests that link Smith and Castle and, suddenly, she's spinning on her heel, shouting at Ryan to get over to the loft and question everyone who lives or works in the building.

She's grateful that he reads the file she hands him rather than asking questions, and merely grabs his coat and his keys before walking towards the elevator.

* * *

The siren of the black SUV blares out a warning as Kate abruptly changes lanes, cruising through the intersection of West Broadway and Canal before she kills the noise and the lights that made a 45-minute crawl in rush hour traffic into a 10 minute dash. She double parks in front of a hydrant directly across from Castle's building, turning her back on the loft where Ryan is still holed up with him to sprint towards the opposite corner.

She's trying not to panic, not to telegraph the worry and urgency of the situation to the buildings super as he stumbles through an explanation of flagging down Reynolds on the street corner and confessing that he thought the man whose photo had been plastered on all the news outlets had taken a two-month sublease in his building.

He's an elderly man, very kind and very worried of causing a fuss over nothing but she and Espo don't miss the hesitation when they produce the sketch. His eyes linger over the features for a beat too long, his breathing becomes shallow and it's as good as confirmation before he meets eyes with each of them in turn, "Sixth Floor, Apartment 12".

The key slips easily into the lock, and there's a brief pause before they both crash into the space. It's nothing extraordinary, a sofa, a coffee table littered with papers that includes a stack of files bearing the NYPD insignia. Both she and Esposito bypass the evidence, sweeping through the place to ensure that it's empty before they both gravitate to the table.

"Montgomery's files," she breathes, running a hand along the top of one and flipping it open. It's a couple of years old, the murder of a woman in the West Village that seems to have gone unsolved. Nothing of consequence to their case. Decoy files, she imagines, Montgomery would have been too smart to merely leave them for the taking. The stolen photo albums are right below, giant X's scrawled over photographs in the prized wedding album as Esposito's quickly pages through until a blank white space shines back at them.

"Guess we know why they stole them. Looking for someone Montgomery knew," he sighs, lifting his eyes towards the kitchen counter where one single cup of coffee rests. He approaches cautiously, using the back of his hand to touch the white ceramic mug, "It's still warm, Beckett. We just missed him."

She gives a loud swear, closing the photo album and rising to her full height. The afternoon sun floods the living room with light, melting the remaining snow that still rests on the windowsills in slow drips. She's giving thought to how nice it is to have a break from the wet flakes, to see sunlight for the first time in days when her mind registers that she knows the terrace across from her. That the grand piano that sits beyond the double glass doors is one that Martha Rodgers plays in her spare time, that Castle insists he only bought for the look and not because he took lessons as a child and sometimes indulges himself.

The shot of fear and adrenaline hit her all that harder when she sees Ryan and Castle enter from the office and approach the windows, and Kate fits the pieces together in the instant before a bullet shatters the window where they stand. The knowledge doesn't stop her from screaming in shock, from charging out the front door and down the hall to the stairwell. She vaguely hears Esposito calling after her, but she's already drawn her gun and scaled half of the remaining flight that leads to the roof. She can't think about Castle or about Ryan, can't entertain the thought that bullet, or God forbid, bullets, found a home in either of them.

Instead she charges up and through the door, already on the hunt for the gunman.

* * *

His whole body stings, a sharp pain digging into his lower back from the hard impact it absorbed on his trip to the floor. Glass shards surround both he and Ryan, and he's sure that he's cut in several places from the explosion.

But there's no searing pain, nothing to indicate that he's been struck by a bullet and Ryan has already gone into cop mode, barking commands and his address into his cell phone while trying to pull him further into the loft and away from another round of fire.

Rick scrambles quickly, slipping a bit on glass as a second window explodes. A third bullet must hit the piano because he hears the groan of the strings as they pop and he's suddenly cursing the multitude of floor to ceiling creations that give such a clear look into his home.

He directs Ryan to the closest haven, nudging the man towards the kitchen so they can hide either behind the counter or inside the windowless laundry room. He can't imagine that the sniper would be able to find a clear shot on the opposite side of the room, but he's been hanging around with Esposito and knows stories of sharpshooters with long range rifles that have killed targets almost a mile away.

It's not a comforting thought as they both make a run in the midst of a third round, all which embed in furniture and one in the floorboard just before he ducks down for the safety of the counter.

"Cruisers on scene in three minutes," Ryan tells him, grunting when he raises his shooting arm and giving Castle a clear view of the glass shard sticking through the skin. "Hopefully a paramedic as well, think I'm gonna need stitches."

* * *

_All I have, all I need,_

_He's the air I would kill to breathe,_

_Holds my love in his hands,_

_Still I'm searching for something.  
Out of breath, I am left, _

_Hoping someday I'll breathe again._

* * *

Her body is pressed against the large air conditioning unit, ears cocked for the rustle of feet on gravel, the rattle of a gun as its adjusted in a hand. She's met with silence and gives herself three seconds to focus, three seconds to breath through the adrenaline surge before she rolls out and expects to be met with the body of a sniper.

The attack, instead, comes from behind, a body of hard muscle leaping from the top of the unit and tackling her to the ground. The hard impact pushes all the air out of her lungs as Kate feels the gun knocked from her hand, hears the metal clatter against the rooftop even while she tries to get her bearings and knock the sniper off of her. She's moderately successful with two quick jabs to his ribs, enough that he backs away and she can rise to her knees. Her own ribs feel like they might be cracked, and there's a steady drip of blood on her coat that tells her that some portion of her face is busted and bleeding.

He's in front of her then, cold brown eyes and short brown hair, the look of a practiced assassin in his eyes. A man sent to do a job, a man with no regard for life but instead for the amount of money received upon taking one. She wildly wonders how much her death is worth, how much someone like Castle or Montgomery earned. Kate steels her body for the next jab, places her weight on the balls of her feet so that she can spring up on the defensive as an arm whips in her direction and a fist connects sharply against her jaw.

She rallies against the pain, shakes off the bright lights that cloud her vision to kick back with her legs. Her arms land two solid hits to the torso and the man doesn't even flinch at the contact, instead he traps her right arm behind her back and lifts his left to wrap around her throat like a vice.

The lack of oxygen is instant, Kate's eyes going wide as her brain and her body begin to panic from its inability to draw breath. But she still fights, using her energy to twist and tug her body against his own with enough momentum that he is forced to bend at the waist to keep her contained. So she uses it, collapses further against the ground and bends. The swing of power sends the man sailing over her head onto the ground, releases the blinding pressure of his chokehold so she can suck in a lungful of cold air.

The sharp bite of it burns her lungs, brings tears to her eyes at the pain and the relief of being able to put breath back into her body and Kate loses sight of the sniper while she works to regain her balance and go after the gun that glints in the afternoon sun. She is still shaky when she makes her dash for it, lunging for the object even when she's knocked off her feet for a second time.

There's a spike of fear as Kate registers how close she is to the roof's edge, one which grows as he lifts her as easily as a child and curls his right hand around her neck and squeezes. The effect is immediate as the air evacuates her lungs and black spots burst against her eyes, and the vein of panic begins beat harder when her body lurches even closer to the edge. She tries to find purchase against the roof with her feet, ties to stiffen her body and throw off the bulk of the man at her back but her brain has already gone fuzzy, her vision is already fading as the black spots grow steadily in number.

And she's suddenly powerless, left dangling like a doll with nothing more than regret swirling through her mind. She closes her eyes against it, refuses to let the dead and passionless eyes of her killer be the final thing she sees. She tries to think of her mother, or her father, but its Castle that comes to mind. He's the one that had warned her, had promised her the world and, now, the one she's going to die without.

Her mother wouldn't have wanted this for her. And it hits Kate with a certainty that brings tears to her eyes as she manages one sucking attempt at air before the blackness wins.

* * *

"Beckett, no!" Javier shouts after her as his former partner bursts from the room. He's forgotten how fast she is in those damn heels, and Kate has already spanned the length of the hall and gotten through the stairwell door before he's even cleared the apartment entrance.

The stairwell is quiet once he reaches it, and for a moment he considers heading down to street level before jerking himself towards the roof. The shots had come from the roof, and he'd bet his life that its where she headed. So it's where he goes, pushing open the door cautiously and drawing his gun from its holster.

The grunts and gasps of air mark the location, and though he's seen combat and is usually always prepared for the worst, he's not ready for the sight of Kate Beckett being choked by a man dressed in black. He's sure she's already unconscious as her body hangs limp, only held upright by the mans hands and Javier has to fight against the surge of emotion. She isn't dead, she can't be dead.

"Let her go, man," he calls, watching the sniper's head turn just a fraction. And then he does let go, completely drops his hands from Beckett's body and she crumples like a rag doll, her body falling backwards and pitches violently towards the edge of the roof.

Javier screams something, approaches the line at a dead run that is only broken by slamming the end of his gun into the man's face. He doesn't want to stop and handcuff the man, doesn't want to read him his rights, but he also can't risk letting the man sneak away. So he does his job, presses the cuffs extra tight against the skin and the huffs out a breath.

Her body is bisected, head and shoulders dangling in the cold winter wind while the rest stretches out against the rooftop. It's the deep three foot edge of the roof that saved her, the beveled edge cradling her lower half and supporting his careful retraction of Beckett from the edge. The bruises are already darkening against her neck, mixed with the flow of blood that still drips from the deep cut on her chin that he's sure will need stitches. She's breathing in short little gasps, and her pulse is beating a slow rhythm when he presses two fingers against her wrist and it serves to retract some of the panic of what has probably been three minutes.

It feels like a year has blown by.

"Detective Javier Esposito requesting officers and a paramedic team to the rooftop of 432 Broome Street. One man in custody, and medical assistance needed for Federal Agent Kate Beckett," he barks the command into his radio with one hand, the other busy holding a gun on the sniper across from him as Beckett begins to stir.

* * *

She's jerked back into reality by the sound of yelling voices, of feet crunching on pea gravel, of someone repeatedly calling her name. Someone is lifting her head, slipping an oxygen mask over her face and Kate is surprised at how much easier it is to think with the aided support.

Right, she was just choked. Oxygen deprivation is a given. Stay with it, Kate.

Her entire body is sore, and fire burns in her throat. She can tell before ever opening her mouth that talking will be an incredible task for the foreseeable future, and the dull ache in her right side leads her to believe that her previous assessment was correct and she's probably cracked a rib or two.

The catalog on her injuries doesn't go much further as the events come back to her in a rush. She ignores the pain, the shortness of breath and knocks away the hand of the paramedic who had been trying to force her to lie still, rips the elastic band of the oxygen mask off her head while she frantically scans the scene for Espo.

She doesn't have to look far, he's overseeing a crime scene tech as they bag the sniper rifle left lying against the roof edge, "Espo," she croaks out on her fourth attempt, bracing herself into a crouch and slowly standing on legs that she's not entirely sure can support her weight. It's a small victory when they do, "Castle and Ryan…." it's all she can manage to get out as he approaches, and she's too exhausted to hide the genuine fear that's surely written across her face.

"Are both fine," he reassures her quickly, "Ryan is getting stitches in his arm from some glass, Castle was giving a statement…" He leaves out the part where the man had refused to do even that before someone assured him that Beckett was fine, the broken look on his face when Officer Hastings had calmly informed him that she'd almost fallen off the roof across the street.

Javier would like to pretend that he isn't shocked to see the tears form in her eyes, but he is. It's a complete surprise to see the woman he's known for a decade bow her head and suck down a long breath, to scrub her hands over her face to gather some portion of herself together that remains lost on him. The steps she takes towards the door are tentative, one hand pressed against ribs he's been told are bruised but he lets her go, intercepts the concerned paramedic with a quiet word.

Whatever it is that she needs to do, he's sure it's better done alone.

It's slow going down the half flight of stairs that lead to the elevator. Kate's progress is both aided and halted by the railing and the solid wall to her right in turn. She's completely exhausted by the time she reaches the final stair and the eight steps it takes to reach the elevator call button are a special form of agony.

But she pushes through it, grits her teeth against the pain because it doesn't matter. All that matters is that she gets a chance to see Castle, to express how desperately sorry she is for everything and how very wrong she's been. It's a need just as powerful as her mom's case, the same sort obsession though this one has the power to lift her up rather than drag her down.

She now knows that her life isn't worth it. Her own death won't bring her mother back, nor would it honor her memory. It's time for a different approach, the right approach. The one Castle has been suggesting she pursue since the day he told her about Clark Murray's autopsy findings.

The arrival of the elevator is announced with a ding that has Kate pushing her battered body away from the wall, hastily wiping away the tears that have already fallen though they are replaced by more salty tracts as the doors open to give her a glimpse of Richard Castle.

"I'm sorry," she gasps immediately, stepping through the doors. She's sure from the stunned expression that she looks like hell, but that doesn't hold her up. She's closed the gap between them in two strides, rising on her toes to cup his face between her hands, "I should have listened. I'm so sorry, Castle," Kate whispers, fresh tears squeezing from her eyes as his hands bracket her waist and her mouth touches to his.

* * *

_A/N (2): Yeah, not quite on par with 'Always' but I guess we will call this a 'tease' of sorts. Stay tuned! Swear this isn't all there is, its just the best stopping point._

_Song: 'Breath Again' by Sara Bareilles from 'Kaleidoscope Heart'_


	13. Chapter 13 (I Just Want You)

_A/N: You wanted more kissing? I obliged. Shippiest chapter that ever did ship. And this song? Is the cutest. GO LISTEN TO IT. _

* * *

_Give me a heart to hold the godlike truth,_

_Give me one good soul I can tell it through,_

_Give me a reason to believe in you,_

_And give me strength if you have time._

_Give me two hands that'll hold this up, _

_And though you give me no more than just enough,_

_You gave a pair of brown eyes that can call a good bluff, _

_To somebody who thinks they shine._

* * *

He's powerless to resist her, this shell of a thing that stands in front him bruised and battered. It's both his worst fear and greatest hope come to life, thrown up against a harsh backdrop where he can clearly see how some maniac gave their best effort to strangle the life out of her. And then, somehow, she'd almost fallen off a roof. Almost plummeted eight stories to the cold sidewalk below.

He's never been more grateful to have her alive and whole, has never dreamed of holding her as tight as he is when the elevator begins its slow descent back to street level.

The whole trip is spent with his mouth against hers, Kate's tongue plundering inside his own. She's practically trying to crawl his body, gripping the collar of his white dress shirt and nudging her hips and thighs against his own so their bodies can fully align. And while he's got questions, while he is in desperate need of clarification and explanation, he needs the reminder that she is still breathing, that her rooftop confrontation wasn't the end.

Rick tries to stifle the bud of hope that, instead, it's going to mark a beginning for them. Her apology smoothed a lot of rough edges, righted a host of wrongs, but it is not enough. Not for what he wants from Kate.

He is slow about pulling away from her. It's light brushes of his lips to her mouth, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, his fingers pressing gently over the small of her back once her head rests on his shoulder. She's still crying, still shaking against him from what he is sure is in part the fade of adrenaline that is giving in to pain. "It'll be okay, Kate," he says softly, whispering the words into the shell of her ear, his heart breaking a little when she doesn't answer him. Instead she curls her body closer, seeks out the warmth that radiates from his chest with a small sniff.

She doesn't protest when he scoops her up into his arms, a sure sign that she's in pain or, possibly, shock, or even acknowledge when two paramedics take over her care once he reaches the street. But they are kind to him, agreeing that he can ride in the back with her, and the EMT doesn't even complain as he holds Kate's hand for the entire trip.

* * *

Kate is discharged with a diagnosis of bruised ribs and a sprained wrist, a prescription for pain medicine and a recommendation that she stock up on throat spray and lozenges to ease any discomfort from the choking.

She's assured by the doctor that she'll be back to form in a couple of weeks, that her throat will be the final thing to heal and that difficult talking will last for some time. And he presses how lucky she is to have survive, suggests that she still might consider therapy to work through what he's sure is quite a mental and emotional trauma.

Once she's stepped through the glass doors that separate the waiting room from the treatment area its like the world changes. Eight pairs of eyes are waiting for her, her dad's by far the most anxious and Alexis' the most angry, though Lanie is making a case for that title. She manages a small smile for them, wishes that she'd worn a turtleneck or something that would cover the bruises that have darkened the pale skin of her neck.

She'd spent a long time staring at them in the room, had catalogued the faint outline of the sniper's hands while a technician had swiped her for prints. Kate knows they don't mean to stare, that everyone (except, perhaps, Alexis) is relieved that she's okay but there are also pointed looks from strangers waiting to be seen who make her want to make excuses for the marks around her neck.

It's Martha who steps forward first, a pull of the pink and blue silk scarf from her neck as graceful as a ballerina extending her arms for a grand jete. The pattern is loud, and it clashes horribly with the deep emerald of her sweater, but the meaning is clear as the woman gently ties the fabric in a delicate knot and gives her a gentle pat on the shoulder with a soft smile. With that one gesture, Castle's mom has forgiven her of any ill will, absolved her of the things she's done to hurt her son and it's so touching that Kate finds herself almost choking on the swell of gratitude she has for the redheaded actress.

Her dad is next, folding her carefully into his arms with a quiet whisper of 'Katie'. The slight sob that comes out of her mouth is unexpected, but she still goes willingly into the cradle of her dad's arms, basks in both the comfort of his embrace and the simple fact that she has him at all. It's not often that she allows herself the acknowledgment that her dad could have fallen into a bottle and never come out, that he made a choice to stop giving her mom's death absolute power over his life and took his fate back into his own hands. There's something painfully ironic about it, she realizes, when you added up the amount of times she'd poured alcohol down the sink, tossed bottles into the trash, pushed him towards rehab and Alcoholics Anonymous in an attempt to save him from himself.

He had done the same in his own quiet way, encouraging her to date, to make friends, to build a life outside of her work and her mom's case. Telling her not to chase demons, to let the past remain there, but never, ever, interfering and putting his foot down to stop her. Kate suspects that he felt he didn't have the right, which wounds her a little deeper. "Dad, I'm sorry," she croaks the words against the wool of his coat, clings to him like she's five years old and afraid of the dark, "I never wanted it to get this far."

She can see in his eyes that he's put it together, that he knows she almost died while chasing at some straw that might bring her mom's killer to justice. Somehow, someway, one of the boys had tipped him towards it and now she's clinging to the one parent she has left, apologizing for years of wrongdoing with nothing more than a hug and a whisper.

"It's okay, Katie," he replies quickly, curling a hand between her shoulder blades, "You're my daughter, I'll always forgive you. And I'll always support you, but I think it's time to have a life outside what happened to your mom. No one will think less of you for walking away. Johanna would want you to be happy, not to overwhelm yourself with her death. That's the last thing she'd want for either of us and I think, now, that you've realized that for yourself."

Her answering nod is shaky, her tears held in only from the force she's exerting from tensing her jaw and pressing her lips together. "I'm not walking away, Dad," she admits quietly, "I'm just not going to give up my own life for answers. I'm going to let people help and, one day, we're gonna get the guy."

Kate waits until her father nods his understanding, until he's drawn her to him for another long hug before she meets Castle's eyes where he stands beside Alexis. In both circumstances, it's him that she wants. It's Castle who she wants a chance with, his comfort and unorthodox mind at her side as she sifts through her mom's case. She wants his help and, honestly, everything else he's willing to give her.

* * *

Four days in a three bedroom suite didn't come cheap in Manhattan, which made Rick all the more grateful that money was rarely a problem. Of course he enjoyed the toys and the luxury of being a millionaire, but you couldn't deny the freedom that came with knowing if you needed to evacuate your home that you could do it - and have it be in a five star hotel.

He was crediting his mother for returning from Chicago and taking the news in stride. She'd been alarmed, had fussed over he and Ryan in turn before uttering some platitude about mad men who carried guns. It had sounded like some mix of Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare that he hadn't bothered to untwist, and had just urged her up the stairs with an officer to pack whatever she needed until the place had been processed and the windows could be repaired or replaced.

It was his daughter that proved the problem. Alexis' red hair had been appropriate for the temper she'd unleashed on him once she'd been allowed into the building. She'd told him she knew he was going to get himself hurt, that if he'd just stay away from the precinct and Kate Beckett that none of this would have happened. And he'd truthfully struggled to find a counter argument for her beyond pressing the concept home that he was the parent and, nineteen and a sophomore in college or not, as his daughter he was afforded some semblance of respect.

Alexis had packed up grudgingly under the same officer's gaze, furious that she was still not allowed to return to her own apartment. He'd wisely kept quiet on the subject as they'd slid into the SUV the car service had acquired and, thankfully, she'd ran out of words in the fifteen blocks from the loft to the hotel.

In fact, Alexis hadn't spoken to him at all since the car. She'd snatched the room key and retreated into the bedroom designated for her temporary residence, slammed the door while he and his mother had watched. Martha had only raised her eyebrows, her lips pursed as if she wanted to speak before she dropped the notion and, instead, made a trip towards the mini-fridge concealed behind a cabinet door and passed one of the tiny bottles to her son.

He'd downed it with some relief, blowing out a long sigh. "Mother, I need to go talk to Beckett. Make sure she's okay."

"Of course, kiddo. You go on, I'll watch over Alexis. Call you if I need your help," she replies with a grand hand gesture meant to push him towards the door.

He makes a show of putting his phone into his pocket, writes Beckett's room number on the back of a receipt he'd shoved into his jeans and slips through the door. It's no surprise that Reynolds shadows him onto the elevator, that Officer Velasquez meets him four floors down where she's stationed as one of the detail placed on Kate. He can see Agent Argent sitting at the other end of the hall, wearing plain clothes and highlighted in the blue glow of a tablet.

It's a full two minutes before the door swings open after his knock, and he notes with some thrill that Kate is gripping her gun. It's mostly hidden behind the door, only the butt of the handpiece visible. "Going to shoot me, Beckett?" he trills, a full blown smile spreading over his face when he's rewarded with a genuine eyeroll.

"Get in here, Castle," she says, and her free hand wraps over his wrist to tug him inside. Somehow she's gotten rid of her gun by the time he's crossed the threshold into the hotel room, and it's the press of her body against his that ultimately closes the door when he falls back against it.

They are drawn together like magnets, Kate lifting up on her toes to crush their mouths together with a combination and passion and urgency that has him groaning. His hands flap around uselessly for moment until they dive into the thick curls of her hair, run the length of her spine in a slow drag that has her arching against him like a cat before her teeth give a sharp pull on his lower lip that makes his blood sing.

It's also the encouragement that he needs when she sinks down several inches and he's forced to chase after the hot curl of her mouth with a light growl. Rick abandons his hold on her hair for Kate's waist, lifting her up and spinning them in one fluid motion to press her back against the solid weight of the door. He knows he hasn't hurt her from the mewling sound that slips out, the way her hips circle and tease against his own in a move that sends his blood flowing south and snaps the thin veil of control he had maintained.

Her fingers have released the top two buttons of his shirt before he even notices, but there's no suppressing the shiver of want that licks at his skin when she leans forward and nips at the hollow of his throat with her teeth. It's the exact amount of pressure to have him grunting, to make him jerk his hips in an unconscious motion that makes a hiss curl out of Kate's mouth.

So he does it again, smiling against the shell of her ear when the noise is a breathy groan of his name and a sinful roll of her hips. Her mouth is back on his an instant later, one of those cat-like sounds that he has decided he loves vibrating through his mouth as Kate gives up any pretense of holding back by setting up a steady give and take of her hips rocking against his own.

She's trying to work at another button of his shirt when Rick slides his hand under the oversized t-shirt she's wearing, bracketing her torso with his hands on a steady slide towards her chest. And he's just reached the curve of her ribs when he remembers, when Kate stiffens in his arms and lets out a cry of surprised pain. Horror floods his brain and he drops his hands immediately, cradling her against him instead as he repeatedly whispers that he's sorry.

"It's okay, Castle," Kate grunts out the words, her eyes closed tightly while the pain crests and then recedes, "I just need a minute."

Rick moves slowly then, securing his arms underneath her rear and closing the distance to the small sitting area that contains nothing more than a couch, coffee table and two armchairs. He's careful as he lowers them both onto the plushy navy blue sofa, lightly brushes the sharp angle of her cheekbone with his mouth, "We don't have to do anything, that wasn't why I came down here," he murmurs, completely delighted at the trill of laughter that she gives him.

"I'm sorry, were you left with the impression that I was complaining?" she poses the question with those pursed lips and the arched lift of an eyebrow that leaves him a little weak of heart, if only by the heat he can feel in her gaze.

"I...no...of course not," he stutters, cheeks flaming red at the misinterpretation of his words.

"Castle, really," Kate sighs then, pressing her lips together as she smooths her fingers against a wrinkle in his shirt that she is sure she's responsible for, "I'm teasing you but we do need to talk. Or at least I do…" she leaves it there for a pause, waiting for his nod, "I'm sure you have questions."

The part of him that is purely a red-blooded male wants to protest, to say that she apologized and its completely fine. The rest of him, however, knows that she's right. That letting his physical want carry them away will only delay the very real discussion they need to have. So he sighs, draws her in for one last kiss and smoothly lifts her long, lithe body from his lap to the opposite cushion.

"Why now? What happened up there?" he asks, curling one hand against her thigh while she nibbles on her bottom lip and considers how to answer.

* * *

_It's all so simple when you break it all down,_

_Two roads converged on a hallowed ground,_

_It's taken all my life to hear the sound, __of sweet simplicity._

_Saying "Give it all back, it don't mean a thing",_

_You've got a short-lived life and a song to sing,_

_And the only way up is believing, __in never looking down._

* * *

"Because you were the last thing I thought of," she says softly, "When he had his hands around my throat I closed my eyes and you were what I wanted to think about when I thought I was going to die. I thought about how the only thing my mom would have wanted for my life is that I'm happy and loved and that you, Richard Castle, are the person who had offered that to me."

"And when I woke up it didn't matter. I didn't care about the case, about if the guy had been caught, I wanted to know if you were okay. If you'd been hit by a bullet and when Espo said you were fine I just…." Kate shrugs, biting on her bottom lip as tears flood her eyes, "I just wanted to tell you I was sorry, that I'd been so stupid and so selfish and that I didn't, that I don't, want to waste anymore time."

His heart swells at her words and soon he's trying to fight off tears of his own, drawing his hands up to frame her face and give her a gentle kiss. It doesn't matter that she's still crying, that she tastes like salt and that her lips are a little chapped and still swollen, Rick takes his time with it. A much softer and sweeter contact than they had shared to date.

"And I am sorry, Castle," she whispers when he's left a small meter of space between their mouths, "You've got no reason to believe me after everything, I know that, but I'm going to do my best to prove that to you, just give me the chance."

"Kate, oh, Kate…" he's shaking his head, his lips falling to touch every part of her face that he can easily reach. He kisses her lips, her eyelids, the space at the top of her nose, "Of course."

And yes, there is more he needs to say to her. Other promises that he needs to hear, other questions that he wants to ask but she's sobbing in relief against him, covering his mouth with her own and it's like striking a match. She's back in his lap in a moment, tongues twisting and hands roaming over skin. Kate's shirt is the first clothing to leave either of their bodies, his lips cutting a path across her chest that creates goosebumps across her skin.

"Bed," she huffs out, both of her hands fisted in his hair as Castle rises to his feet with a hum of agreement.

* * *

_So take it all away, i__f it isn't meant for me,_

_I don't want the easy way,_

_I just want you._

_They can give me everything, but at the end of the day,_

_The only words I'll say, _

_I just want you._

* * *

There's a rolling beat, the strum of a guitar and the steady staccato of drums that wake him. It sounds like it should be played in some exotic cafe by a quartet of men in black t-shirts and sunglasses or maybe a movie soundtrack.

Actually….is that the main theme to _August Rush_? He's just scrubbed at his face, braced his elbows on the mattress to leverage himself upright when the music stops and a quiet hello replaces it.

It's a tumble of messy curls and an expanse of pale skin that greet him when he opens his eyes. There are bruises of varying shades and sizes crawling across the canvass of Kate's naked back, he's studying the work of art in front of him and trying to determine if he had a hand in any of those (he tends to think that the three lines he can see at the bow of her waist would be his doing, three marks of his enthusiasm at what he'd gotten to do with her once she was naked), when her words penetrate the haze of his incredibly sated state.

"No, I assure you that I'm fine. I'll be back at work after the funeral," she's whispering as much due to her sore throat as an attempt not to wake him, though Kate still senses the movement behind her even before his lips caress her shoulder.

The smile is automatic, beginning with a sparkle in her eyes and spreading down to curve her lips into something he can only describe as stunning. And though he wants to kiss her on the mouth, Rick holds back and settles for nips against her shoulder blades and the graze of his teeth against the open space between them until she's arching into his touch and trying to swat him away in the same breath.

It's a fascinating study in the war between Beckett the federal agent and Kate the woman as he dives in a second time, earning a breathy sigh when his tongue sweeps over her collarbone and her eyes darken into pools of jade and she's stuttering on her words, "I-I, y-yes, I understand. I'll see you tomorrow," she grits out, ending the call a second before Rick's mouth lands in a place where she's sure to be unable to keep quiet.

And she doesn't, the moan is low and vibrates through her chest, "I _hate_ you," Kate swears, carding a hand through the thick strands of his hair while he chuckles, "That was my boss, Castle."

There's a pop when he lets go, the smug grin sending a flare of heat low in her belly, "Not what you were saying earlier."

"Oh my God, really?" she shoves at him then, sliding from underneath the blankets and out of his reach. It's almost difficult to care when he's treated to such an excellent view as she plucks his shirt from the floor and slides it up her arms, "Now I _definitely_ hate you."

He gives her a wiggle of his eyebrows that gets one of those eyerolls that, even after four years without them, he knows she doesn't mean which is the sole reason he kneels at the edge of the mattress, snags her forward so that Kate's knees brush the edge, "Where are you going, Beckett? And why is your ring tone that guitar riff from August Rush?"

Rick has never been close enough to her when she laughs to see the muscles in her face contract, to notice how the brown and gold flecks brighten before she tips her head back and lets out some strangled thing that he knows is inhibited by the damage to her neck. But he smiles anyway, lightly kisses the swell of her throat, "I was going to get the takeout menus and order in, and because I like it, nosy."

"Mmm, food," he purrs while his fingers unbutton the two holes she had closed, "I don't think you have to be dressed to order in, Beckett. And I also happen to know that there is excellent room service here, the kind where you don't even have to get out of bed."

It's over an hour before he calls down their dinner order, his entire body pressed into the mattress by the weight of a sleepy and content Kate Beckett.

* * *

It's just past midnight when Rick stirs awake again, jerked into the world by a dream where Kate met her end on a fall from the roof of a building he's stared at every day for almost twenty years. It makes his blood run cold, surges panic in his veins until he is fully with it and can see the steady rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps on her back.

One arm is thrown out lazily towards him, her leg hooked around his as the shadows from the city lights filter through the drawn curtains. The fluorescent glow highlights the bruises that mottle her neck and upper arms, the deep red of the gash on her chin and the contrasting stitches that hold it closed. He's sure she's in pain but her deep breathing is enough to tell him that the emotions of the day and two rounds of truly excellent sex are enough to bestow the gift of a dreamless sleep.

So he sits and watches, counts each breath she takes, and studies the sharp angle of her cheekbone, the way her lashes create dark parentheses against an otherwise pale face. And he finds himself hoping that it's enough, that she won't wake up one morning and run, that she won't leave him in the dust when she goes back to the precinct and is faced with her mother's case.

Even with her words, her promises, Rick knows it will take multiple demonstrations before his lingering doubts and fears ever truly leave. But he also knows that it's far too late to back out, that he's been pulled into the deep end of the pool and its up to the two of them to sink or to swim.

"Staring's creepy…" she slurs at him, fingers lightly tapping against his chest, "go to sleep."

"I will," he assures her softly, scooting his body to lie flush with Kate's, securing his arms around her and nuzzling his face into the soft waves of her hair, "Soon as I ask you something."

She grunts in protest, but opens her eyes, alert enough to understand him but not so much that she won't drop back into sleep the moment he stops talking, so he makes it fast, "You are in this, aren't you? Not going to wake up in the morning and tell me its a one time thing?"

"Two times already…" she sighs with a sly little smile, bringing their joined hands to her mouth and dropping a kiss to the back of his, "So there's a flaw in the logic already, but no, Rick, this is more than one night. So sleep, I'll be here when you wake up."

Even with her assurance it still takes some time for sleep to return, but he eventually does nod off far more at peace than he has been for somewhere around four years.

* * *

_Song: 'I Just Want You' by Sara Bareilles from 'Brave Enough: Live at the Varsity Playhouse'._


	14. Chapter 14 (Bluebird)

_A/N: Hello everyone! First of all, I'm sure you noticed the pen name change. That is because I decided it was easier to keep my tumblr and this account the same. So, if you'd like, you can follow me over there at _alwayswritewithcoffee_. There's an ask box and all of that, and I'm open to answering questions. The second thing is, if you knew what I do for a living (which I realize you don't) you'd understand the space between updates. This week has been insane, and work will remain that way until the beginning of March so I just ask that you all be patient. I also rewrote the scene in the graveyard about 12 times, but I finally ended up happy with it. _

_Thanks for following along and reviewing! I enjoy hearing from you!_

* * *

No amount of makeup is enough to hide the bruises. Kate spends somewhere north of thirty minutes staring at them in the bathroom mirror, stubbornly applying multiple coats of thick concealer that stains the grey t-shirt she wears and paints lines onto her skin when she turns her head so that the lumpy mess separates against the bend and pull of her neck.

She tries not to let it bother her when she finally washes it off, finishes applying mascara to her lashes and caps the tube without allowing herself another glance. If she looks, the process will begin anew and she can already feel Castle's questions and need to reassure her that it doesn't matter. He's been sneaking glances through the open door ever since she started the process, wisely remaining silent though she can feel the time ticking down towards that phenomenons end.

The second of the black dresses she purchased makes a cool slide over her body, the wool blended fabric instantly warming as it encases her body heat. The neck is high, enough to cover those marks against the lower portion of her throat but the blue-black material throws those still on display into an even more vivid pattern of colors. There's dark navy and red-tinged purple imprints of fingers, ringed by the green and light blue that only reminds Kate of how close it all came. How close _she _came to being the one inside a coffin.

It so easily could have been her funeral that Castle and his family are preparing to attend, and though she's alive and somewhat less of a jigsaw puzzle than she had been yesterday, there are still sharp edges and a brittleness that Kate's not sure she'll ever function without.

* * *

Coffee. Coffee for Kate. It's a concept he never expected to be a part of his life again. Had it really only been three days ago when she'd turned those painful green eyes on him and told him it was a bad idea? When they'd both stood in his living room for the second time and, practically, broken up? It feels like a lifetime ago, back before she was strangled, before Montgomery had died from some sudden complication. Before he had been shot at by a sniper.

Rick clutches the cup in his hands, soaking the warmth from the brown liquid while she gets dressed. His reaction is nothing new, he's always held an appreciation for her body, and the bruises that color her skin are no surprise, he mapped them with everything from his hands to his teeth in the intervening hours, but it all still hits him like a kick to the gut. It's both ecstasy and agony, pain for the knowledge that she is hurting, and pleasure at the fact they both bestowed that feeling on one another.

And concern, obviously. He can't remember a moment where he hadn't been desperately, and overwhelming, concerned for the well being of the woman who is slipping on a pair of black heels and attempting to pretend that the bruises don't bother her, that she isn't sufficiently rattled over the past 48 hours.

Always so tough, so guarded. Surely she knows he's going to catch her if, unfathomably, she falls?

Rick supposes that she doesn't, that Kate has never allowed herself the luxury of not holding up the weight of the world alone. It's an endearing, and consistently frustrating, characteristic, one which he doesn't wish to break her of but, perhaps, to convince her that its easier if she allows someone to help. That someone, clearly, would be him.

"Kate, here," he finally says when she's stopped fidgeting, her hands stilling in the flare of material around her hips. Even from his position on the bed he can see the way her fingers tighten in the soft wool, the hitch of her breath and the slow drag of its release. Her lips quirk upward as the expansion of her rib cage jostles the battered skin and he tries not to take it personally when the smile he gets is hesitant, a completely lackluster expression that doesn't reach her eyes or do much more than constrict the muscles into more of a grimace.

It's not him. It's today. It's the pain. It's not being in control.

For once, it's everything but him.

Her fingers brushing against his is the first contact of their bodies for the morning, little sparks of electricity when the slender digits caress the back of his hand. It's a thank you without voicing the words, her eyes a shade lighter with the familiarity of the action, of the acceptance that he's putting on display. He knows her so well that it makes her heart stutter, makes her want to cry and do nothing but move back under the blankets so she can thank him in all the ways she isn't prepared to give voice too.

Instead, Castle's thumb leaves a light pressure against the thin skin between her thumb and forefinger. Tight little traces of a circle that inexplicably loosen the tension that has built between her shoulders. That contact is like a magnet, drawing her forward so his arms can wrap around her waist, so that Kate can snuggle against his still scruffy cheek and just soak him in.

The hug is followed by her mouth finding his, gentle pecks to show her appreciation for far more than the coffee. The coffee has always just been his way of showing that he cares for her, a ritual as ingrained into her memories of Castle as his insane theories or observant stare. But the rest of it, it's new and it fills Kate with something tangible, something that she'd thought had passed along with her mother's death and her father's descent into a bottle. It's safety, it's reassurance.

It might be unconditional love.

* * *

_This pair of wings, worn and rusted,_

_From too many years by my side,_

_They can carry me, swear to be, _

_Sturdy and strong,_

_But turning them on still means goodbye._

* * *

Snow still stands in a slushy, dingy blanket over the cemetery. The sky remains overcast, heavy gray clouds casting shadows on the ground that seem to leach even more color from the scene around them. It's all black, white and gray. Completely morose and more than a little depressing as Rick stands to the left of the podium while the Montgomery's reverend reads select verses from the Bible and speaks highly of the man they've all gathered to bid farewell.

He gives his own speech, one that he wrote in the early hours on hotel stationary while Kate slept beside him with one arm curled around his thigh. It's hard at moment to force out the words he reads from the page, emotion and grief knotted tightly together in his stomach but he gets through it by meeting those forest green eyes and that defiant tilt to her chin, so utterly determined not to cry though he knows Kate is just as broken by this moment of farewell as the rest of them.

They stand together once he finishes speaking, cold fingers clasped tightly while officers pass Evelyn a folded flag, while others toss dirt onto the coffin and even once the wrench grinds into gear and sends the polished wooden box below the surface of the ground. It's only once the whirring of the machine has stopped, when the gravediggers approach to toss dirt into the hole that they back away.

"How do you just forgive someone?" The question is spoken quietly, Kate's words almost carried away by the wind. He's operating on instinct when he draws her thin frame against him, bracketing her smaller body from the worst of the chill as they make their progress to the waiting SUV. He can just make out the silhouettes of Evelyn and her two daughters sliding into a town car that will take them to the reception hall as they reach the crest of the small hill.

Rick doesn't answer her immediately, too struck by the improbability that Beckett would ever pose such a question to him and far too aware of its importance. It's not a question he can just answer without some thought because he suspects that this is about far more than the actions of Roy Montgomery.

"Love." It's not the answer he'd thought about giving her, but it is the one that he knows is right. There's no denying that men make fools of themselves over the concept, that wars have been waged and lives destroyed over it. It's the thing that people spend their entire lives searching for, the thing that has the power to lift you to unreachable heights and bring you to unspeakable lows. And, in that power, holds the grace of forgiveness, because people are not perfect. People are selfish, cruel and terrible works of a God that he sometimes struggles to believe in. But Rick also knows that the power of loving someone is the redeeming facet for all of it, it's what magic and dreams and fairy dust are created from.

"When you love someone, you make yourself vulnerable," he says, slowing their trek towards the car with a hand steady against the small of her back, "You give them the power to destroy you, but also to make your life the most incredible experience. And when you realize you love someone, you accept all of their faults and flaws because it's who they are and the good things are always shadowed by the bad. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone comes up short, and loving another person means that you forgive them for mistakes, you accept the shortcomings and you work on being better together."

The tears come in a steady flow across Kate's cheeks, the wind whipping around them already giving her skin a pink tinge, and she's gripping his hands like she's in search of an anchor. He knows in his bones that some part of Kate loved Captain Montgomery, and that portion of her hasn't ceased to exist with the knowledge they both carry of his past, just like he knows that it's only her fear of being hurt that holds her back from giving the man her complete forgiveness. The desperation rolls of her like waves pounding sand.

"Storge. Philia. Eros and agape, Kate. All forms of love, all things which you make me feel - sometimes in the same damn breath," he sighs, tilting his head towards the sky to merely gather himself together, "Forgiveness isn't easy, it's the hardest thing to do sometimes. It's easier to hold on to anger, hold on to hurt. But when you forgive someone? You are letting that connection, that love you have for them, go free. Maybe it doesn't last, maybe it all plummets in some fiery crash, but I don't believe a human soul belongs in a cage, or trapped behind walls, especially not one as breathtaking as yours."

"I forgave you because you asked me too, because I couldn't imagine allowing you to carry around the guilt of my denying you absolution. But, most of all, because I'm completely in love with you and nothing you've done, or I've done, has cured me of that. I've buried it under anger and distracted myself with meaningless things, but it always came back to loving you," the words have barely left his mouth when his arms are full of Kate, the warmth of her mouth pressed against his and her arms thrown around his neck. She's still crying, occasional little sniffs from her nose, while they kiss.

In a perfect world the contact would last forever. He could gather her up and just simply refuse to let her go, but being surrounded by tombstones is enough of an indication that perfection is merely a myth and when Rick finally pulls away from her its done with the resolve that he must finish purging himself of all the things he's kept at bay.

"I'm not going to pretend that its enough," he tells her, careful to keep his voice soft, his fingers splayed across the curve of her cheek, "I don't trust that you aren't going to run, that you aren't going to push me away when it's all too much or you don't want to face a problem. I'm not at all convinced that you and I won't explode into a thousand pieces, that you won't break me into a million pieces. But I do know that I've got to at least try, if only to stop asking myself 'what if'."

Kate absorbs all of it, the flare of hurt burning bright in her eyes at his final confession. But there's also a quiet acceptance, and silent agreement that whatever has changed between them might be too little, too late. She can't be angry at him for speaking the truth, and she's strangely proud that one apology, one night, and one confession aren't enough to erase four years of mistakes. It's all been wonderful, the very stuff she'd alternately dreamed and fantasized about, but the debt is still outstanding.

And she knows better than to make any promises because for all her affirmations and realizations, going at it alone and pushing people away is a habit that she's going to struggle with breaking. She might have given Castle access through the largest and toughest wall around her heart but there are others lurking in the shadows. "Trying is all I'm asking, that you let me prove that I'm sorry, that I want this to work," she tells him, "And that, when I do try to push you out that you don't let me. Don't let my stubbornness keep you out, Castle."

It's his lips covering hers after that, whispering his own acceptance just before their mouths connect. And though he knows Kate is never so ready with her emotions, that she's a long way from any big declarations like what he's just shared, he still imagines that this kiss is a silent response of her feelings.

* * *

_So, here we go, Bluebird,_

_Gather your strength and rise up. _

_Oh, here we go, Bluebird. _

_Ready to fly, you and I, _

_Here we go. _

* * *

She watches their progress from the partial protection of the blinds. It's an intricate dance, a give and take in the way they lean towards one another, how hands lightly brush as they move down the hallway. He pauses at the entrance to the break room to allow her entrance, though it requires a slight twist of her body - a twist that is performed so the swell of her backside just skims across thighs and abdomen.

The lust and sexual tension is noticeable even through two panes of glass and a host of detectives desks, something that only the most oblivious person would miss were they to spend any significant amount of time in observation.

Observation is enough to tell Rachel McCord that her best agent is sleeping with the writer.

"Agent Beckett." Rachel's voice is like steel when it carries across the room, not hard enough to silence the bullpen but the noise does diminish significantly as every single head swivels towards the open blinds where the woman in question is holding a coffee mug that has clearly stopped its trek towards her mouth. "A moment, and bring your tag-a-long," she gestures at the man who gapes at her from Beckett's back.

The noise value triples suddenly, everyone on alert and attempting to look busy while Kate crosses through the maze of desks with Castle hot on her heels. She's glad that she's changed into a suit, the familiar weight and drag of the material coating her body in something like armor. Not that its going to do any good when her boss is on the warpath.

"Agent McCord," Kate begins as soon as the door has closed behind them, long before Rachel has taken a seat at the head of the conference table. "I'm sure you have lots of questions about our progress on this case, we had planned on doing a full briefing for you at 2 p.m. but I can -"

"Sit down, Beckett," the woman says, her words clearly implying that Castle should join her. And then she waits, giving them both time to settle in, for the writer to throw a worried glance at both of them in turn before she props herself at the edge of the table, arms crossed. "I'm sure you remember our policy on personal relationships in the office."

They both jerk forward in shock, and Rachel is delighted to see that the writer's jaw is hanging open while her agent is valiantly trying to look unaffected. Still, there's a blush that spreads over her cheekbones, a shock in her eyes that can't be missed. Neither of them make a move to deny her knowledge, though the question of _how _she knows fills the room as if one of them had spoke aloud.

"For the future, I'd like to remind you that you should check all phone calls have been properly disconnected. Otherwise your boss might overhear facets of your personal life that are best left unknown," she tells them both, watching as Beckett's pink blush turns red and the agent buries her head in her hands.

"That's my fault…" Rick speaks up, one hand aloft as if he is answering a question in his first grade class.

"I'm aware of that, yes," Rachel replies dryly, pushing away from the table edge to resume her seat at the head of the table, "And I'm aware of your reputation as both a former colleague of Agent Beckett's, and your assistance with the NYPD on many cases. However, allow me to make myself clear, Mr. Castle, if you hamper this investigation in any way not only will I remove you from the case, I will press to both the police commissioner and the mayor that it is no longer in their best interest to have you continue to work with the police department in any capacity."

"That includes distracting Agent Beckett in any way, and that is not limited to throwing yourself in the line of fire. You might have signed waivers for the NYPD, but those do not extend to our bureau. You step a toe out of line and you are off this case, out of the department, and likely going on a vacation into witness protection until we can determine it is safe to release you. Do you understand?"

Rick can only stutter sounds for a moment, terrified, impressed and enthralled in equal measures while this woman regards him with ice blue eyes that show no sign of backing down. He completely believes that she'll throw all of that at him, and probably several other things she didn't bother to mention, "I...I….yes, I do," he says, wishing he sounded less like a chastised little boy and more like a grown man.

"And Agent Beckett," those blue eyes release Rick from their hold an instant later, moving on to size up the other woman in the room. Rachel doesn't expect Beckett to blink, not with her composure regained and her game face intact. "From this moment forward, I am taking point on this investigation. I warned you before you took this case, and in the time since, about putting a personal agenda above your work. You ignored my warning, and should consider yourself lucky that I am not removing you altogether. However, one more misstep? You will be removed and suspended from this task force, pending a committee review of your actions that, ultimately, could have you stripped of your position altogether."

"Mr. Castle is sticking with us, for now, but I'm going to press this to you - your priority is this case. It is not to protect him, or any other members of this department for which you feel a kinship. If you prioritize them over your work, unless in situation where life is threatened, you will be suspended immediately. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Kate replies, holding Rachel's gaze until the woman reaches for the smart board remote and flicks the power button.

"Good, now gather up this team and tell me what you have. I want this jackass caught and thrown in jail," Rachel drawls, spinning in her chair to examine the timeline as Kate moves to her feet to gather up her team, Ryan and Esposito.

* * *

"Our research indicates that Senator William Bracken and Congresswoman Elizabeth Tyne were college friends. They both attended Columbia Law, both moved into the District Attorney's office and after Bracken vacated his seat in the House of Representatives for Senate, he endorsed Tyne to take his place. Clearly, she's been holding the job for the past two terms and will be looking for a third," Rachel reads all of the information from a file in her hands, the facts springing to life on the board behind her as Agent Arrison types the information up.

"Not only that, but the two of them have similar voting records. On virtually every campaign issue that voters care about, they are in agreement. However, like most politicians, records indicate voting for favors to others in Congress or a host of other reasons that may, or may not, be in the best interest of those they have pledged to serve. Annoying and worth kicking them out of office, but not illegal."

She drops the file to survey the room, hands planted firmly on the table. "I'm not doubting that connections in these two murders have led you here, I think there are plenty of clues that could tie someone in these offices to the deaths of Rylee Matthews and Jonathan Vickers. However, where I draw the line, is the implication that a case from over twenty years ago is at all related. The death of Bob Armen, while tragic, has been closed as a kidnapping gone wrong at the hands of two NYPD officers and, from what I see here, your only connection is a killer for hire."

"And that isn't enough?" Rick asks, aware of the incredulous tint of his voice but unable to help the disbelief. Both the NYPD and FBI labs had confirmed fingerprints and bullets to prove Smith, Montgomery and Matthews were all killed with the same rifle. He and Ryan had been shot at with it and, somehow, that wasn't enough? It was ludicrous.

"No, it isn't. This man is a contract killer, Mr. Castle. You don't have any evidence that will convince any judge or jury that he didn't merely accept two different contracts for two unrelated cases or that the attempts on your life and that of Detective Ryan were to stop you from investigating further," she responds.

"I cannot control what the NYPD chooses to do with their investigation, but I am telling my team to focus on Vickers and Matthews. Tyne's husband filed for bankruptcy after his business failed, and yet the family have made no noticeable lifestyle changes. Requests for campaign records have not been filled, so we are assuming they live off her salary and aren't tapping into fundraising money. However, money is quite the motivation so I want all of you to look into blackmail schemes, pocket accounts. Maybe Vickers or Matthews discovered tampering with campaign money, I'm sure there are supporters and employees out there who'd find that worth killing over."

And everyone at the table looks ready to protest, but McCord's wave of dismissal cuts it all off before it can begin. "8 a.m. tomorrow, we meet up and brief the case again. I want something solid, not a damn thing involving mobster kidnappings in the seventies and eighties, understand?"

Quiet replies of 'yes, sir' lead the task force out the door to go back to work.

* * *

_Song: 'Bluebird' by Sara Bareilles from 'Kaleidoscope Heart'._


End file.
